He held my gaze.
“You stop.”
I frowned slightly. “Stop?”
“Stop covering for him. Stop stepping in. Stop answering the calls that were never officially yours to begin with.”
He leaned forward just a bit. “You step back cleanly, legally. And you let the structure stand on its own.”
There was a quiet in the room after that. Not uncomfortable, just heavy with meaning.
“What happens then?” I asked.
Martin’s expression stayed neutral. “That depends on how stable the structure actually is.”
Later that afternoon, I sat in Sharon Bell’s office. Fifty-eight. Sharp eyes, no nonsense. She had worked with our books a few times over the years, mostly when Greg got in over his head during tax season.
She flipped through a set of documents in front of her, glasses perched on the edge of her nose.
“You’ve been doing a lot more than helping out,” she said without looking up.
I let out a quiet breath. “I know.”
She tapped a page. “Line of credit renewal’s coming up Monday,” she said. “You prepared most of this?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “Figures.”
She finally looked at me. “If you step away now, he’s going to feel it fast.”
I swallowed. “How fast?”
She gave a small, almost sympathetic smile. “Sooner than he thinks.”
She turned another page. “And Denise, there’s something else.”
My chest tightened just slightly. “What?”
She tapped the paper again. “He’s taken on a new development deal recently. Big one. Connected to a real estate agent.”
I didn’t need her to say the name.
“Tessa,” I said.
Sharon gave a small nod. “The thing is, the bank approved the initial review based on historical records.”
She met my eyes. “Records you organized.”
The room felt a little smaller.
“If you’re not there to maintain that consistency,” she said carefully, “they’re going to start asking questions.”
I sat back in the chair, and for the first time I saw it clearly. Not just the affair, not just the humiliation. The assumption that I would keep everything running no matter what. No matter how he treated me, no matter who he brought into my home wearing my dress.
I let out a slow breath. “This isn’t just about me leaving him,” I said quietly.
Sharon shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s about what happens when you stop holding things together for someone who thinks they’re doing it themselves.”
That evening, back at Paula’s, I sat on the edge of the guest bed with my phone in my hand. It buzzed again. Another message from Greg.
We need to talk about Monday. The bank called.
I stared at it.
