Chapter 13 - The Last Offer
I did not meet him alone.
Elise met him with building security and documented what he was carrying.
Company contracts.
A backup drive.
The original loan application.
None of it went home with him.
By the time I arrived, he was standing outside the building without his access card.
Rain darkened the shoulders of his suit.
For once, there was no glass of wine in his hand.
No woman laughing beside him.
Just a man watching a door stop opening for him.
“Clara.”
I kept walking toward the entrance.
“Five minutes.”
“You can speak to Mendoza.”
“I’m your husband.”
I turned.
“That stopped meaning what you think it means a while ago.”
His face changed.
Not anger this time.
Something closer to fear.
“I can fix this.”
“How?”
“We sell the house. Pay down the debt. Put the rest behind us.”
“We?”
“I’ll end things with Valerie.”
I stared at him.
He thought that was still currency.
“You don’t understand,” I said. “There is no version of this where getting you back makes me whole.”
He stepped closer.
“I loved you.”
“Then you should have treated that as a responsibility.”
“I made mistakes.”
“You made plans.”
He looked away.
That answer found him.
“The company. The transfer. The loan. The guarantee.” I kept my voice quiet. “Those weren’t bad moments, Anton. You had time to stop.”
A car passed through a puddle behind us.
Neither of us moved.
Finally, he said, “My lawyer says there could be criminal exposure.”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t do that to me.”
“I didn’t forge anything.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did.
He wanted me to absorb the damage one last time.
To protect his future with the pieces of mine.
“Mendoza has referred the evidence where it belongs,” I said. “I’m not hiding it.”
His eyes filled, and for one painful second I saw every year we had shared.
Then he said, “Your mother always thought she was better than me.”
The softness vanished.
“She thought I deserved someone I didn’t have to carry.”
“You think you’re so—”
“Goodbye, Anton.”
I went inside before he could finish.
Upstairs, Mendoza waited in the conference room.
“The hearing is tomorrow,” he said. “And we have the examiner’s preliminary findings.”
I set my bag down.
“Tell me.”
“The signature page on the guarantee was assembled from another document.”
I gripped the chair.
“Can they prove it?”
May you like
He opened the report.
“They found the original.”
