Chapter 2 - The Watch
By Saturday afternoon, Grant finally remembered he had a wife in a hospital bed. Not enough to actually show up.
He texted: Mom thinks you owe her an apology for making her birthday stressful.
I handed the phone to my father. His jaw tightened. "You want me to destroy him?"
"No," I said. "I want him to destroy himself."
For months I'd been quietly reviewing our finances, because the numbers had stopped adding up. Grant earned a solid salary as a senior acquisitions manager at Ashcroft Capital, but our savings kept shrinking anyway. He blamed the mortgage. Blamed "baby expenses."
The truth sat in a folder on my encrypted laptop. Seventeen transfers, totaling eighty-six thousand four hundred dollars, had moved from our joint account into an LLC controlled by Roberta. Grant had also used a copied version of my electronic signature to guarantee a two-hundred-forty-thousand-dollar business loan for her failing luxury-events company.
Worse — the application listed my inherited condo as collateral. My condo. Not ours.
I'd discovered the forged guarantee eleven days before I went into labor. I'd planned to confront him once the baby arrived, because I wanted facts in hand, not just accusations. Now I had both.
I called my attorney, Renata Cole.
"Freeze whatever we can legally freeze," I said. "Dispute the guarantee. Prepare the separation petition. Document every transfer."
"You're sure?"
I looked over at Miles, asleep beside me. "Yes."
Meanwhile, Grant grew bolder by the day. Roberta posted photos from a three-day resort weekend — champagne, spa robes, a private dining room, Grant grinning underneath a caption that read FAMILY COMES FIRST.
He also sent me a photo of Roberta blowing out candles. Underneath it: See? Everything's fine when people stop overreacting.
I saved that message too. By that point, every cruel line he sent had stopped being a wound and started being evidence.
One photo actually made me laugh. On Grant's wrist sat a platinum watch — not Roberta's gift. His own. I recognized the eighteen-thousand-seven-hundred-dollar charge from a statement he assumed I'd never look at closely.
Sunday night, my father opened his tablet. "There's something you need to see."
Grant's department at Ashcroft Capital was already under internal review. An acquisition he'd championed involved a vendor connected directly to Roberta's LLC. He'd never disclosed the relationship.
"Did you start this?" I asked.
"No. Compliance flagged it six weeks ago. I didn't even know he worked for us until you told me his full name."
Grant had spent two years bragging that his chairman was "an old dinosaur who wouldn't recognize talent if it shook his hand."
My father gave a thin smile. "I recognize fraud fairly well, though."
Monday morning I was discharged. My father came home with us and refused to leave until I'd actually slept.
Three hours later, Grant's key turned in the front door. He walked in carrying leftover birthday cake, that watch still on his wrist.
Then he glanced into the living room.
My father sat in the rocking chair, calmly holding Miles.
Grant froze mid-step. The cake box slipped out of his hands.
"Mr. — Mr. Ashcroft?"
May you like
My father looked up. "Hello, Grant."
I watched my husband's face turn completely, entirely white.
