Chapter 4 - The Partnership AgreementDaniel's company had always been spoken about as if he had built it alone.
I didn't expect Claire.
Three days after I left, someone knocked on the cottage door at 9:20 in the morning.
Natalie had gone grocery shopping.
I assumed it was a delivery.
When I opened the door, Claire Halstead stood on the porch.
She looked different from her photographs.
Smaller somehow.
Less polished.
Her blond hair was tied in a messy ponytail, and there were shadows beneath her eyes.
My first instinct was anger.
My second was surprise.
“How did you find me?”
Claire hugged her arms across her chest.
“Daniel's Find My account.”
“He doesn't have access to my location.”
“Your iPad did.”
I made a mental note to fix that immediately.
“What do you want?”
“To talk.”
“No.”
I began closing the door.
“Daniel lied to both of us.”
My hand stopped.
Claire swallowed.
“I know you hate me.”
“I don't know you well enough to hate you.”
That seemed to hurt more.
“Can I have five minutes?”
I should have sent her away.
Instead, I stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind me.
She would not enter Natalie's home.
“You have five minutes.”
Claire stared at the lake.
“He told me you knew.”
“I do.”
“No. I mean he told me you've known for months.”
“I've known for three weeks.”
Her face changed.
“He said you agreed to stay married for appearances.”
I said nothing.
“He told me you had separate bedrooms.”
False.
“He told me you hadn't loved each other in years.”
False.
“He told me you refused counseling.”
We had never discussed counseling.
“And I suppose he told you divorce papers were already being prepared.”
Claire's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
“Did you know he was planning our anniversary dinner?”
“Yes.”
“At least that's honest.”
“I told him if he went, I was done.”
“I know.”
Her cheeks reddened.
“You read that.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn't trying to hurt you.”
I stared at her.
“You were sleeping with my husband.”
“I believed he was leaving.”
“You still knew he was married.”
She looked down.
“You're right.”
That answer surprised me.
No excuse.
No counterattack.
Just acknowledgment.
Then Claire reached into her handbag and removed a folder.
“I brought you something.”
I didn't take it.
“What?”
“Bank records.”
My heartbeat shifted.
“Why would you have Daniel's bank records?”
“Because he asked me to help him set up an account.”
I stared at her.
“He told me his business partner was trying to take control of the company and he needed to protect some funds temporarily.”
“The LLC.”
Her face paled.
“You know about Westbridge?”
So that was its name.
“Yes.”
She opened the folder.
“Daniel made me an authorized administrator. Not an owner. I never touched the money.”
“Why?”
“He said lawyers couldn't connect it easily to him if someone else handled the paperwork.”
My stomach tightened.
Claire continued.
“There's more than six hundred thousand.”
“How much?”
“Last time I saw the account, $1.1 million.”
A cold sensation spread through me.
Rebecca had found only part of it.
“Where did the money come from?”
“Different accounts.”
“Company accounts?”
“Some.”
“Personal?”
“Yes.”
“Our joint money?”
Claire looked miserable.
“I think so.”
I took the folder.
Pages of statements.
Transfers.
Dates.
Account numbers.
And there, halfway down one page, a transfer from an investment account ending in 4119.
I recognized it.
Mine.
A retirement investment account funded partly from my grandmother's inheritance.
My hand began shaking.
“He stole from me.”
Claire's voice dropped.
“I think he was planning to leave.”
I looked up.
She continued.
“He said once the financial situation was organized, he'd file and you'd get the house.”
“How generous.”
“He said you didn't understand business and you'd never notice the other assets.”
For a moment, I heard nothing.
Not the wind.
Not the trees.
Not the water.
Just one sentence repeating in my head.
She'd never notice.
For ten years, I had tracked our household finances down to twenty-dollar subscriptions.
Daniel knew that.
Which meant he didn't truly believe I was incapable.
He believed I trusted him too much to look.
“Why are you giving me this?”
Claire's expression changed.
“Because last night, he came to my apartment.”
“I thought you left him.”
“I tried.”
“And?”
“He blamed me for you leaving.”
I almost smiled.
Of course he did.
“He said if I hadn't been so demanding about the anniversary, everything would still be fine.”
Claire's laugh was bitter.
“Apparently I ruined his marriage by reminding him he was having an affair.”
“He does have a gift for outsourcing responsibility.”
“He wanted me to come back.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
That answer stopped me again.
Claire wiped beneath one eye.
“I don't need you to forgive me.”
“Good.”
“I just thought you should have everything.”
“Why?”
She looked toward the road.
“Because when I told him I was done, he said something.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘You don't walk away from me with information that belongs to me.’”
The words sent a chill through me.
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not directly.”
“But you were frightened.”
“Yes.”
I looked at the folder.
“Did you copy everything?”
“Everything I could.”
“You need an attorney.”
“I know.”
“And you need to tell my attorney what you told me.”
Claire nodded.
I gave her Rebecca's number.
As she turned to leave, I said, “Claire.”
She looked back.
“When did it really start?”
Her expression tightened.
“The affair?”
“Yes.”
“Nine months ago.”
Daniel had told me six.
Of course.
“And before that?”
“We worked closely together for almost a year.”
“Did he tell you he loved you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you love him?”
Claire looked toward the ground.
“I thought I did.”
I nodded.
“So did I.”
She walked toward her car.
Then stopped.
“Rachel?”
“Yes?”
“He talks about you more than you think.”
I almost laughed.
“I don't care.”
“He said you made him feel ordinary.”
That surprised me.
“What?”
“He said everyone thought he was brilliant, but you remembered who he was before the money.”
I thought of Daniel at twenty-six.
Cheap apartment.
Student loans.
Big dreams.
He used to make pancakes at midnight because we couldn't afford restaurants.
“He hated that?”
Claire shook her head.
“I think he needed it.”
“Then why destroy it?”
Claire looked at me sadly.
“Maybe because someone who knows where you came from can also see what you've become.”
Then she drove away.
At noon, Rebecca arrived.
She spent almost an hour reviewing the records.
When she finished, her expression was grim.
“This just became a very different divorce.”
“How different?”
“Hidden marital assets. Potential misappropriation of company funds. Possibly fraud depending on where these transfers originated.”
I sat across from her.
“Can he lose the company?”
“He could lose much more than that.”
My stomach tightened.
I had wanted freedom.
I hadn't wanted destruction.
Rebecca seemed to read my face.
“Rachel, whatever happens next is the consequence of what Daniel did, not the consequence of you discovering it.”
I looked at the records again.
Then I noticed a transfer date.
February 12.
My birthday.
I remembered that night.
Daniel had taken me to dinner.
He gave me diamond earrings.
He kissed my hand and told me I was his entire world.
At 3:17 that afternoon, he had transferred $80,000 from our investment portfolio into Westbridge.
The earrings cost $2,400.
I started laughing.
Rebecca frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
But it wasn't nothing.
It was clarity.
The man I missed had not existed for a long time.
Maybe he never had.
My phone buzzed.
Daniel.
Please, Rachel. Just tell me where you are.
Then another.
We can fix this.
I looked at Rebecca.
“What happens when he's served?”
“Probably anger first.”
“When?”
She checked her watch.
“About twenty minutes ago.”
As if on cue, my phone rang.
Daniel.
I declined it.
He called again.
Declined.
Then a message appeared.
YOU'RE TRYING TO TAKE MY COMPANY?
Rebecca leaned back.
“Well.”
I stared at the screen.
The strange thing was, I hadn't been trying to take anything.
May you like
But if part of Daniel Whitmore's empire had been built with my money, my labor, and ten years of sacrifice—
maybe it had never been entirely his to begin with.
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