Chapter 3 - The Woman I Thought Would Never Leave
Maren didn’t speak.
Neither did I.
The investigator’s voice remained on speaker.
“I’m still verifying whether the electronic request was completed or merely initiated,” he said. “Do not assume the document reflects a valid beneficiary change. I’m contacting the insurer’s fraud department.”
Maren finally asked, “How would Cassie even have access?”
That was the question.
And I hated the answer forming in my head.
My apartment.
My laptop.
My passwords.
Cassie had been inside my office.
Not often.
Once.
Maybe twice.
Three weeks earlier, Maren had taken Noah to her mother’s house for the afternoon.
Cassie came over.
I had told myself it was harmless because Maren wasn’t there.
Another lie with better clothes.
My laptop had been open.
“I may know,” I said.
Maren looked at me.
Her expression told me she already understood.
“You brought her into our home?”
The investigator went silent.
“Maren—”
“Our home?”
“I’m sorry.”
She stared at me.
There are moments when anger is louder without shouting.
That was one.
“You let her into the house where our son sleeps.”
“She never went near Noah.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
Because there was nothing else left to say.
Every explanation I reached for sounded like an insult.
I ended the speaker call after asking the investigator to send everything to both attorneys.
Maren took Noah from me.
The movement was gentle.
That hurt more.
She wasn’t punishing me.
She was simply reclaiming the part of her life she trusted.
“I have to go.”
“Maren, please wait.”
“No.”
“This insurance thing changes something.”
“It changes whether Cassie committed fraud.”
“It proves I didn’t do that.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“You want credit for one betrayal you didn’t commit?”
I had no answer.
The elevator doors closed between us.
That afternoon, I went to my office and canceled every meeting.
I called my attorney.
I called the insurance company.
I changed every password.
Then I called Cassie.
She answered cheerfully.
“Hey.”
“Did you access my insurance account?”
Silence.
“Cassie.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Maren’s policy.”
“I don’t know anything about Maren’s policy.”
“An electronic request came from your internet connection.”
Another pause.
“You’re accusing me?”
“I’m asking you.”
“No. You’re panicking because your wife left and now you need somebody else to blame.”
“Did you use my laptop?”
“You gave me access to your laptop.”
“For what?”
“You told me to order dinner.”
That was true.
I remembered giving her the password.
My stomach twisted.
“Did you open financial files?”
“No.”
“Cassie.”
“Damien, stop.”
“Tell me the truth.”
She laughed bitterly.
“The truth? You want to talk about truth now?”
I said nothing.
“You lied to your wife for months. You lied to colleagues. You lied to friends. You lied every time you came to my apartment and then went home to play husband and father.”
Every word was deserved.
But she still hadn’t answered.
“Did you access the account?”
“I’m done with this conversation.”
She hung up.
I sat behind my desk staring at the city.
Nine years earlier, Maren and I had met at a charity auction.
I remembered her laughing because I accidentally bid twelve hundred dollars on a pottery bowl I didn’t want.
She teased me about it for years.
On our third date, she told me she hated people who treated kindness like weakness.
I told her I agreed.
The irony almost made me laugh now.
Maren had always been kind.
Patient.
Steady.
Somewhere along the way, I had mistaken those qualities for permanence.
I thought because she forgave small things, she would forgive large ones.
Because she stayed through stressful years, she would stay through betrayal.
Because she loved me, she would tolerate anything necessary to keep loving me.
I hadn’t respected her loyalty.
I had depended on it.
That evening, my attorney called.
“The insurer froze the beneficiary request.”
“Good.”
“There’s more.”
I sat straighter.
“What?”
“The request was incomplete.”
“So it never changed?”
“Correct.”
Relief hit me.
“But whoever initiated it had access to personal identifying information.”
“Cassie?”
“That’s what investigators are examining.”
“Why would she do it?”
“I’m your attorney, Damien. I’m not going to speculate.”
After we hung up, I walked through the empty penthouse.
The silence had changed.
The night before, it had felt like punishment.
Now it felt like evidence.
Maren had removed nearly everything that belonged to her and Noah.
But she had left my belongings untouched.
She hadn’t destroyed anything.
Hadn’t thrown my clothes onto the sidewalk.
Hadn’t smashed the bracelet.
She had simply removed herself.
There was dignity in that.
And it made my behavior look smaller.
I found an old photograph in a drawer.
Maren, seven months pregnant.
Me standing behind her with both hands over her stomach.
We looked happy.
Maybe we had been.
That was another difficult truth.
A marriage didn’t have to be miserable for someone to betray it.
Sometimes selfishness didn’t come from deprivation.
Sometimes it came from entitlement.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Cassie.
We need to meet.
I stared at it.
Then another.
There are things you don’t understand.
I almost ignored her.
Then the third message arrived.
Maren’s investigator is wrong about why I accessed the account.
My heart accelerated.
I replied.
Where?
Cassie chose a café near the river.
Public.
Bright.
Crowded.
When I arrived, she was already seated.
She looked different.
No glamorous dress.
No carefully styled hair.
Jeans.
Black sweater.
Nervous eyes.
I sat opposite her.
“Talk.”
She glanced around.
“I did use your laptop.”
My jaw tightened.
“For what?”
“I saw a folder.”
“What folder?”
“Financial.”
“And you opened it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you kept telling me you were going to leave Maren.”
I stared at her.
“I never said that.”
“You said things were complicated.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“You said you weren’t happy.”
“I was lying.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Cassie’s face changed.
“What?”
“I wasn’t unhappy.”
She stared at me.
“I told myself I was. I told you I was. But I wasn’t.”
Her eyes hardened.
“So what was I?”
I looked down.
There was no kind answer.
“A selfish decision.”
She flinched.
I deserved the hatred in her face.
“So you destroy your marriage and now suddenly I’m the mistake?”
“I destroyed my marriage. Not you.”
She looked away.
“Why did you access the insurance account?”
“I found the private company documents. I thought you were hiding money because you planned to leave.”
“So you accessed Maren’s insurance?”
“I was trying to understand what the company was.”
“That doesn’t explain the beneficiary request.”
Cassie’s fingers tightened around her cup.
“I didn’t submit it.”
“Someone using your internet did.”
She looked at me.
“I downloaded documents at my apartment.”
“What documents?”
“Copies from your laptop.”
My stomach dropped.
“You copied my files?”
“I was scared you were lying to me.”
The hypocrisy was almost unbearable.
“Where are they?”
“On my computer.”
“Who else has access?”
She hesitated.
“Cassie.”
“My brother.”
I frowned.
“Evan?”
She nodded.
I knew Evan Monroe only vaguely.
He had failed at several businesses.
Cassie complained constantly about lending him money.
“What does Evan have to do with this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he know about me?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know about the company?”
Her silence answered.
I stood.
“Damien.”
I looked down at her.
“If your brother touched anything connected to Maren, Noah, or those accounts, you tell the investigator everything.”
“I will.”
“Today.”
She nodded.
I walked away.
Outside, rain had started.
I stood beneath the awning and called Maren.
She didn’t answer.
I left a voicemail.
“Maren, this is important. Cassie admitted copying files from my laptop. Her brother may have accessed them. I’m sending everything to Rebecca and the investigator.”
I paused.
Then added something I should have said months earlier.
“I’m not asking you to trust me. Just protect yourself and Noah.”
I hung up.
For once, I didn’t add “call me.”
I didn’t demand anything.
Two hours later, the investigator called.
Cassie had turned over her computer.
Her brother’s login appeared in the access records.
There were copied documents.
Search histories.
Attempts to understand my holding company.
And an unfinished insurance request.
But there was something else.
A spreadsheet.
A list of assets.
Mine.
Maren’s.
Our home.
My company.
And beside several entries were notes written by Evan Monroe.
The investigator read one aloud.
I felt my blood turn cold.
If D.H. leaves wife, exposure creates leverage.
Leverage.
This was no longer just about my affair.
Someone had looked at my lies and seen an opportunity.
May you like
And I had opened the door for him myself.
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