Page 87

“The investigator, Martin Vale, found notes,” I said. “They tied the upcoming club dinner, my trust, your father’s liquidity problem, and our marriage all together in a neat little package.”

Paul’s face changed with each word as he went pale under his golf tan.

“He shouldn’t have told you that.”

“He shouldn’t have had anything to tell me.”

“You’re right.”

His agreement stopped me, because I’d wanted him to argue, had been itching for a fight.

Paul took a breath. “My father’s firm is in trouble. Worse trouble than I understood until last night. There are positions overextended, and there have been transfers I don’t like.”

“Client money?”

“I don’t know enough to say that definitively.”

He let out a breath and ran a hand through his hair.

“I’m trying not to accuse him of a crime without proof.”

“Don’t be noble. I’m furious with you.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” I walked back toward him, close enough now to see the faint crease beside his mouth that wouldn’t deepen for another twenty years. In the future, I’d known every line in his face, had watched them arrive one by one through work, children, funerals, mortgages, school tuition, and both of our parents deaths. This younger face should have been easier to read. It wasn’t.

“When we first started going out,” I said, “did you know your father liked the match because of my family money?”

Paul’s silence hurt more than an answer would have.

“Say it.” Heat rose from my stomach up through my chest and neck to my face.

“Yes.”

I pressed my lips together. “Did you want my money as well?”

He looked miserable. I’d never seen Paul look quite like that, not even when he was older and tired and holding himself together beside a hospital bed.

“At first,” he said quietly, “I thought it made good sense.”

The room tilted slightly as I reached for the back of the chair.

“Made sense.”

“That sounds worse than the way I meant it to.”

“I don’t think it does.”

He ran a hand through his hair again, this time ruining the careful part.

“Our families knew each other. Your parents liked me. My parents liked you. We had the same expectations of life. We came from the same world. It wasn’t only money.”

“How generous.”

“That isn’t what I mean.” He looked directly at me, and I knew before he spoke that he was about to tell the truth in a way that would cut deeply.

“You were a suitable match.”