Part 6

The audit took longer than the gossip. For several weeks, strangers debated our marriage while the accountants traced invoices and authorizations. Some people accused me of inventing everything to punish my husband. Others treated Madison’s correction as proof that she had known every detail from the beginning. Neither group had the records.

Denise helped me separate the personal questions from the business questions. My marriage could not be settled by a bank investigation. The forged agreement could not be resolved by an apology at home. I filed for divorce and gave Dominic notice through the proper channels.

He requested a meeting. I agreed only after Denise offered to be present. Dominic arrived with his own attorney and a box of documents. Among them were emails showing that the prospective buyer had never seen my real approval. Dominic had sent the buyer an edited copy of an old document.

“I knew you would refuse,” he told me. “I thought if I could finish the sale, I could pay the debt before you found out.”

I asked why he had not simply told me about the debt. “Because you would have looked at me differently.”

I thought of the photographs falling against his chest at the hotel door. He had worried about how I would see him, not about the risks he had asked everyone else to carry.

The audit found that the proposed transfer had not gone through. It also identified payments requiring further review. The board sent the findings to the relevant authorities and began negotiating a lawful restructuring of Dominic’s stake. Neither the board nor I pretended that all legal questions had already been decided.

Madison’s company withdrew its bid. She sent me one last message: I am sorry I made a spectacle of your pain. I did not answer immediately. I was allowed to take my time.