Chapter 40
Forty
Ellie
Fifteen minutes later I step into my apartment, my mind set on getting Jack’s backup laptop as quickly as I can. I need to
dig a little deeper into the financial affairs Jack’s been keeping from me before I confront him about any of it. The apartment
is quiet, untouched. I miss it. My heart clenches with the desire to just go back to before. Before everything got complicated and I realized that nothing in my life is what it seems. I set my bag down on the side table
and move in the direction of Jack’s office when I hear it.
“Babe—” a feminine giggle echoes down my hallway.
I turn my head just in time to see my husband come around the corner. Aubrey trails after him wearing just a lacy bra and
thong underwear.
“Oh my God.” They both whip around at my words. Jack’s face falls like he’s seen a ghost. Aubrey tries to cover herself with
my husband’s body but the damage is already done.
“El—” Jack stammers but remains frozen.
“Are you okay?” Aubrey’s eyes hang heavy on mine, almost like she’s genuinely concerned.
“I was until you walked out with my husband looking like that,” I snap. Aubrey opens her mouth and then closes it again, like a fish gasping for air. I lean a hip against the table, crossing my arms and then letting a dark smile cross my face.
“I can explain, El—” Jack begins.
“I doubt that.”
Jack’s eyes hang heavy with mine. The silence throbs like a heartbeat between us.
“This isn’t what it looks like, El—” Aubrey begins. I cut my cold gaze to hers. “Just hear me out–I promise it will all make
sense.”
“No. No it won’t.” A growl that’s practically feral leaves my lips. “I had a feeling after I saw you both at The Peninsula
the other night—”
“No—” Aubrey interrupts me.
“Get out.” I seethe. “Both of you, get the fuck out of my life.”
“El—it’s not that simple.”
“It is. I can’t look at either of you right now.” My heart hammers wildly. “Everything suddenly makes so much more sense.”
“Does it?” Jack asks.
I bite down on my bottom lip to stop myself from crying. “How long has this been going on?”
Jack shakes his head, words caught in his throat. Aubrey glances down at the floor, shame blossoming crimson on her cheeks.
“Perfect, just fucking perfect,” I say to Jack. “You carry on right under my nose for who knows how long, and then you’re
too much of a fucking coward to tell me how long you’ve been playing me?”
My rage reaches a fever pitch and I throw the nearest thing within distance at his head.
One of the engraved pens my father gave to employees as Christmas gifts last year whips across the room.
My aim is bad, so it bounces off the fridge just above his head.
He ducks anyway, cringes, and then latches onto Aubrey’s hand and drags her down the hallway.
“Get out of my house!” I shriek after them. I feel like a fool. I should have listened to my instincts and confronted them
the other night at The Peninsula, but then, what good would that have done?
I’m still shaking with rage when Aubrey slinks out of my front door a minute later, refusing to even look at me. Jack returns
to the kitchen as soon as Aubrey’s left.
“Please, will you let me explain? Let’s just be rational about this, El.”
“Fine. You can start by explaining why my dad is paying you all of this money from an offshore account.”
Jack’s gaze falls to the file clutched in my hand. “Oh, you noticed that?”
“Sure did.” I widen my eyes, challenging him to try to explain this.
“I was helping your dad with a sensitive case,” he says, taking a few steps forward.
“Don’t—stay right there. Don’t come any closer.” I hold up a hand.
“El—”
“Don’t El me.” I mock him. “Tell me the truth or I’m filing for divorce first thing in the morning.”
“El—”
“Stop it! Just be honest with me for once, would you?”
He frowns, moves to take a step toward me, then seems to think better of it and pauses. “When I was an intern at your dad’s
company—”
“In college?” I ask, disbelief crowding my thoughts.
“In college,” he continues. “I witnessed something that would have ruined all of us. Him, me, you, all of Northrup Thomas.” I don’t say anything because there isn’t anything to say.
I start thinking back on the more than ten years since that time—was anything real?
“Your dad didn’t trust anyone else, so I helped him handle things. ”
“Handle things, huh? That doesn’t sound good.” I think about the check stubs and the giant amounts of money that have been
flowing back and forth between my dad and Jack. “One of the check stubs in this file is dated from last month.”
Jack nods. I can almost see the thoughts running through his head. “That summer I was an intern at Northrup Thomas was just
the beginning.”
“That’s the summer we met.”
Jack nods, his silence confirming all of my worst fears.
“You—you only started dating me because I’m my father’s daughter, right? Did he put you up to it?”
“What? To marrying you?” Jack is shifting back and forth, uncomfortable with my scrutiny. “Of course not.”
“Of course not. Right.” I snap. “I can’t trust anything that comes out of your mouth.”
“You can, El. You’re the only thing I think about from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep at night. Everything I do
is for you.”
“Liar. You don’t even come home most nights.” I think of all the nights he must’ve spent with Aubrey—and maybe she’s only
one in a line of affairs he’s had right under my nose. “Is that why you moved her in right next to me? To babysit me?”
“That’s insane—of course not.”
“Is it?” I snap. “Seems like the most obvious setup to me.”
“Aubrey and I just met—”
“Bullshit!” I scream.
“I swear.”
“And you didn’t marry me because of my dad? And you didn’t start taking all of this money from him as a payment for marrying
me? Like a fucking dowry or some bullshit.”
“El—that’s crazy.” Jack approaches me with an arm extended. “I love you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.” I shove stacks of his work files and folders off the kitchen island and they fly in
a tornado of chaos, landing across our kitchen and dining room floor. “I hate you.”
“No—fuck—please, just hear me out.”
“I can’t.” I admit, shaking my head. It’s so tiring hating someone you love.
I go into our bedroom, closing the door behind me as tears flood my eyes. I settle on my bed, thinking I may never have the
energy to leave this room again. What kind of secrets could possibly be worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars my dad
has been shuttling into accounts in my husband’s name?
Investments? Money laundering? Murder?
I can’t stand to look at my husband’s face—not now, maybe never again.