Page 110 of The Bad Husband

It's the main door.

Soon after, a car engine roars, the vehicle moving rapidly away from the house.

Henrietta has left the building.

We could end this right now. She could tell me where the money is, hand it to me, and just let me be.

She’d get a divorce from me, cutely wrapped in a bow.

She says she doesn’t have it.

That much money? I find it hard to believe.

That’s the other reason we got married.

Surely, she had to say yes to my proposal with the barrel of a gun pressed to her head. The priest knows me––didn’t mind it. And let’s say there wasn’t much audience in the room.

Let’s also say this.

I can’t stand people stealing from me.

Worse than that, I despise those people I have put trust into claiming what’s mine.

But to have someone I trusted steal from me, then run away and spend the money with another man?

That’s the ultimate offense in my view.

She denied another man was involved. I didn’t believe her then. I don’t believe her now.

Her main argument was that she had no money on her when she married Lila’s father.

Just because she didn’t have any money on her doesn’t mean she didn’t have it.

She bamboozled the poor guy, convinced him to marry her, and lay low to see if she could get away with it.

I still think this is about another man, her getting back at me for whatever we had quarreled over in the past, and her ambitious plan to undermine me.

Yeah. I’m not buying it.

My thoughts are shattered when Lila walks out of the pool.

She runs a towel over her body and lets her hair down.

“You can take it off,” I say, pointing to her swimsuit.

“Are we alone?”

I flick my chin down.

“Yes. And she’s not coming back,” I say.

“How do you know?”

“I just do. Strip and come to me.”

She removes her bra with a pang of hesitation.

“Those too,” I say, pointing to her panties.