David’s stomach dropped.
He recognized the amounts.
He recognized the dates.
He recognized the Tribeca brokerage.
The condo.
Allison’s condo.
“What?” Allison asked.
David looked at her slowly.
“Did you tell anyone about the condo?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The down payment.”
Allison’s face changed.
Not guilt.
Fear.
David saw it.
“You knew where that money came from?”
“You said it was yours.”
“I said I handled it.”
“That’s the same thing to me.”
David gave a stunned laugh.
“Of course it is.”
He scrolled through the attachments.
There were copies of transfers between accounts, purchase records, and a reconciliation Catherine could only have produced by going back through years of financial data.
David remembered walking into their kitchen years earlier and seeing Catherine at the table with Aiden asleep against her chest, one hand supporting the baby’s head while the other corrected his company’s ledger.
He had kissed her forehead that night.
You saved me, he’d said.
Somewhere along the way, he had rewritten that history until he was the man who built everything alone and Catherine was the woman lucky enough to stand nearby.
Now the same skill he had dismissed had traced every dollar he thought he had buried.
Another message arrived from Steven.
The firm had requested preservation of relevant financial records and had notified the appropriate parties that ownership of funds used in the property transaction was disputed.
No accusation in the message was dramatic.
No threat was written in anger.
That made it worse.
Steven had prepared before Catherine signed.
Catherine had known.
The passports flashed through David’s mind.
London.
The driver.
The cream envelope.
Her complete lack of surprise when he bragged that there was nothing worth fighting over.
She had not surrendered.
She had finished preparing.
David left the ultrasound room without waiting for Allison.
His family stood when he entered the waiting area.
Linda smiled immediately.
“Well?”
Megan held the gift bag against her chest.
“Boy or girl?”
Sandra clasped her silver charm.
David looked at them and suddenly saw the entire scene from outside himself: six adults assembled to celebrate a child whose paternity was uncertain while his actual children were leaving the country.
“The dates are wrong,” he said.
Linda blinked.
“What does that mean?”
“It means she’s eighteen weeks.”
Megan frowned.
“I thought she was twelve.”
