Derek had told me it was someone from work.
Now that voice had a face.
I looked at Brenda.
She looked away first.
Catherine heard the silence between us.
“I assume this is Brenda,” she said.
Brenda’s shoulders stiffened.
Derek stepped between us.
“Leave her out of this.”
My hand tightened around the folder.
“Why?”
“Because she has nothing to do with our marriage.”
I opened the folder.
The first receipt was from the Hawthorne Hotel.
Two nights.
A suite.
The date was my birthday.
Derek had told me that evening he was helping close a difficult sale and wouldn’t be home until after midnight.
I had eaten leftover pasta alone and saved him a slice of grocery-store cake.
The second receipt was from a restaurant I had once asked him to take me to for our anniversary.
He had said it was too expensive.
Two dinners.
Two glasses of wine.
Dessert.
The charge appeared on our account three weeks later.
There were more.
I looked at Brenda.
“Were you with him?”
Her face went white.
Derek answered for her.
“Don’t do this.”
That was almost funny.
For years, Derek had demanded explanations for every receipt in my purse.
Groceries.
Gas.
Shampoo.
A birthday card.
He could turn twelve dollars into an interrogation.
Now hundreds and thousands of dollars were sitting in my hands, and suddenly questions were cruel.
“Were you with him?” I asked again.
Brenda swallowed.
“I didn’t know what he was telling you.”
Derek spun toward her.
“Brenda.”
She flinched.
That tiny movement told me more than her words.
Catherine’s hand closed around the handle of her cane.
“Interesting,” she said quietly.
Derek looked toward the crowd and realized people were watching.
Several donors knew Catherine.
A hospital board member had stopped only a few yards away.
Two executives from Derek’s dealership were standing near the bar.
The humiliation he had designed for me at the bus stop had returned to him, only this time there were witnesses.
He changed tactics immediately.
“Olivia, you’ve been under a lot of stress.
Come home.
