The Husband Who Lied to Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Everything Was Under My Name

Nolan comes home with tears and a lie; Ruby records him, changes the lock code and finds the March folder in his desk: a sale of her family company with her signature.

I drove home with the radio off and my left hand bare on the wheel.

I had a bag half packed before I heard the Volvo in the driveway.

Nolan came through the front door fast, with his tie pulled loose and his eyes already wet.

"Ruby, baby, let me talk."

"Talk," I said.

I took out my phone and set it on the kitchen island with the recorder running.

He looked at it and then at me.

"What's that for?"

"So I get it right later. Go ahead."

He ran both hands over his face.

"It was one time," he said. "One night, at the office party. I was drunk, she was crying about her ex, and it just happened."

"The video is ten days old."

"Okay, twice."

"There's a hotel bar in Beaverton on the thread. A year of messages."

He stopped.

I watched him choose his next lie.

It took about a second, and he made it look like grief.

"She came after me, Ruby. She's been jealous of you since college. She says the baby is mine, but she sleeps around, it could be anyone's."

"She told me an hour ago she was pregnant," I said. "She didn't say whose."

"Because she knows it's not."

"Then why were you outside the restaurant to pick her up?"

His mouth opened and nothing came out of it.

"You told me you were in Salem," I said. "Where did you park the Volvo, Nolan?"

"Babe."

"Say it. Where."

He sat down hard on a kitchen stool.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry. I'll end it today. I'll never see her again. You can't make a decision like this on the worst afternoon of your life. Please. Give me until after your birthday."

"Why does my birthday matter?"

"Because we planned a party," he said. "Eighty people. You've always wanted a big one. I don't want you to spend your thirtieth alone."

I looked at him for a long moment.

He had been so careful with that answer.

It was the first thing he had said all day that sounded rehearsed.

"Get out," I said.

"It's my house too."

"Then you can come back with a lawyer. Tonight you go to your mother's."

"Ruby."

He got up, picked his keys off the counter, and stood in the hall holding them.

"You'll regret this," he said softly. "You'll want me back by Friday."

"Good night, Nolan."

He went.

I stood at the window until the Volvo turned out of sight.

Then I did the thing I should have done the day I married him.

I called the smart-lock company, got the code reset from my phone, and watched the little light on our front door go from green to red.

It was almost seven.

I had not eaten since the pancakes I never touched at brunch.

I went into the small room we called the study, which was really his, and I opened the desk.

Nolan's desk was always tidy.

He handled our taxes, our insurance, our car loan, every form I had ever hated.

"Let me," he said every single time. "You've got your kids all day, babe."

I had loved him for it.

In the bottom drawer, under the warranty folders, was a thick blue folder labeled March.

I knew that month.

He had put a stack of papers in front of me one night in March and said they were for the refinance and I only had to sign where the yellow tabs were.

I had signed the whole stack with a pen in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.

I opened the folder.

The first page said Power of Attorney, and my name was typed on it: Ruby Tillman, Principal.

Under it was Nolan's: Nolan Prewitt, Agent.

I read the paragraph twice.

It gave my husband the right to act for me in every matter concerning the shares of Tillman Marine Supply held for me in my grandfather's trust, until the date they became mine.

My grandfather had built that company from a single boat shed.

It paid for my school and my first car.

It was the biggest thing he had left me.

The second document was clipped behind the first.

It was a sale agreement for all of it.

Buyer: a group in Seattle.

Seller: Ruby Tillman, by her agent, Nolan Prewitt.

The price ran to eight figures.

On the last page there was a line for a closing date, and it had already been typed in.

It was the Friday after my thirtieth birthday.

And on the line for the seller, in blue ink, he had signed for me.

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