Chapter 4

# Chapter 4: Divorce

"You want to know why I'm smiling, Julian? Because you just committed fraud in front of twelve board members."

The room went quiet. Julian stood at the head of the long glass table, mid-sentence, with a laser pointer in his hand and a slide behind him that said *Q1 Expansion Strategy*. Twelve directors turned to look at me in the doorway.

I walked in with Mr. Pruitt on my left and Dale Mercer on my right. Dale carried a black case under his arm.

"Serena." Julian's voice was easy, but his eyes were not. "What are you doing here?"

"Attending my husband's meeting. I own thirty-four percent of this company. Or I did until yesterday morning, apparently."

Someone coughed. A woman at the far end of the table put down her pen.

"This is a private matter," Julian said. "We can discuss it at home."

"We can discuss it here." I took the seat at the other end of the table, directly across from him. "Mr. Pruitt, please."

Pruitt placed a folder in front of each director. He did it slowly, the way a man deals cards he knows are good.

"Yesterday at nine-forty," he said, "forty million dollars was moved out of the Hale Family Trust. The transfer form carries Mrs. Reed's signature and a notary stamp from a Mr. Alan Briggs." He paused. "Mr. Briggs has been dead for three years."

Papers rustled. A man in the second row went pale.

"That's a clerical error," Julian said.

"The money went to a shell company called Lakeview Services," Dale said, without standing. "Lakeview paid six months of rent on a third-floor apartment on Alder Street. It also covers a car, a nanny, and a private preschool. All of it was set up by your finance director, Mr. Boyd, who is sitting two seats from you and looking for the exit."

Harlan Boyd tried to stand, then sat back down.

I nodded at Dale. He opened the case and connected a tablet to the wall screen.

The first photo filled the room. Julian on a sidewalk, swinging a small boy in a dinosaur sweater into the air. Then Camille in a doorway. Then the three of them walking inside together. The next photo was a birthday cake with four candles. The last was a screenshot of a message.

*Tonight she'll sign. She always does.*

I watched Julian's face. He did not try to speak. For the first time since I had known him, he looked like a man with no script.

"Julian," I said quietly, "who's Oliver?"

The door banged open.

"What is the meaning of this?" Margaret Reed, my mother-in-law, swept into the room in a cream suit with her chin raised. She had clearly been told something in the hallway. She came straight at me, one hand already lifting. "You ungrateful little..."

Two security guards caught her arms before the slap landed.

"Mrs. Reed, please," one of them said.

"Take your hands off me!" She twisted around. "Julian, tell them! Tell them she's lying!"

Julian said nothing. His mouth opened and closed.

Then a second voice came from the doorway, thin and trembling.

"Please, don't hurt her. She didn't mean it."

Camille Voss stood in the hall with Oliver on her hip. Her eyes were red. Her hair was a little messy, deliberately so. She had put on a gray dress that made her look small.

I almost laughed. She was good.

"I'm so sorry," Camille said. She took one step into the room, then stopped, hugging the boy. "I never wanted to hurt anyone. I didn't know he was married when we met. He told me his wife had died."

"That's a lie," Julian said, finally.

"You said it, Julian." Her voice cracked in just the right place. "You said you were all alone."

For a moment, I thought she might actually pull it off. Then a director near the middle of the table, a gray-haired man named Walter Greaves who had known my father, stood up.

"Miss Voss," he said, in a flat voice, "you brought a four-year-old into a boardroom in the middle of a fraud disclosure?"

Camille blinked.

"You walked into a meeting you weren't invited to," said the woman at the end of the table. "With a child you're using as a prop."

"I'm not..."

"Please take the boy out," Walter said. "Now."

The color drained from Camille's face. She looked at Julian. He looked at the table.

She had never once, I realized, been the one left standing in the cold. She didn't know what to do with her hands.

Oliver started to cry. I looked away, because that part wasn't his fault.

"Motion," Walter said, turning to the rest of the board. "To suspend Mr. Reed as chairman, effective immediately, pending a full investigation of the trust transfer. All in favor."

Eleven hands went up. Julian's mother's was not one of them, because she was not on the board. His own hand stayed on the table.

"Motion carries."

I stood and opened my bag. I laid a single document in front of him. It was the divorce petition, already signed, already stamped.

"I filed this an hour ago," I said. "My lawyer has the trust frozen. The shares you forged are void and revert to me. The penthouse is in my father's name, so you have until six o'clock to collect your clothes."

"Serena." His voice dropped. "You can't do this. After everything."

"Everything," I said. "That's an interesting word for it."

I walked out. Behind me I heard his mother shouting and Camille sobbing and chairs scraping, and none of it touched me.

The elevator was empty. I pressed the button for the lobby and leaned against the cold mirrored wall, letting my heartbeat slow.

The doors started to close. A hand shot between them.

Julian stepped in and the doors shut behind him. His tie was crooked. There was sweat at his hairline.

"How did you do it?" he asked.

"Do what?"

He grabbed my wrist. His grip hurt. "My finance director didn't know about Alder Street. Only three people on earth knew about Oliver, and none of them would have told you. How did you know?"

I looked at his hand, then at his face.

"You really want to know?"

"Tell me."

I leaned a little closer, near enough to see the fear in his eyes for the first time in two lifetimes.

"In six days," I said softly, "you'll be standing outside a door, begging someone to open it. I'll be on the other side. And I'll be the one watching."