“It mattered, Natalie. Every time I wanted to make a move, there he was with another condition, another document, another reminder that nothing in our life was really mine.”
I stared at him. “And you think the appropriate response to feeling insecure was adultery and possible fraud?”
“It wasn’t fraud.”
“Then what was it?”
He hesitated again. Too long.
That was all I needed.
“Get out of my father’s study,” I said. “Now.”
For one awful second I thought he might refuse. His mouth tightened. His shoulders squared. He looked at me like he was trying to decide whether intimidation still worked on me. Maybe it had, once. Maybe the old me would have stepped back just to keep the peace.
But the old me had buried her father that morning.
He turned and left without another word.
I waited until I heard the guest room door slam upstairs before I sat back down.
Then I called Blackwood.
He answered on the second ring. “I was wondering how long before you found the black file.”
“What am I looking at?”
A pause. Paper shifting. The measured inhale of a man choosing exact wording.
“You are looking,” he said, “at evidence suggesting your husband anticipated your father’s death as an opportunity.”