He Reversed His Vasectomy for Another Woman, So I Took Everything novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Ninety Days

In his dock office Cosimo asks nothing, sets two rules and ninety days, and shows her fourteen transfers signed with her name, one dated while she was in Lisbon. Only her husband and her father could see her calendar.

Cosimo Carraro's office was above a loading dock in Charlestown, and the men at the gate waved my car straight through.

Nobody asked my name.

He had told them I was coming.

I climbed the iron stairs with my coat buttoned wrong and my wedding ring still on.

He was standing at the window with his back to the room.

He turned around when the door closed, and he didn't come toward me.

Five years had put a little grey at his temples and nothing else.

The scar through his left eyebrow was exactly where I had left it.

"Sit," Cosimo said. "You're shaking."

"I'm fine."

"Then sit anyway."

I sat.

He poured coffee from a steel thermos into a paper cup, set it on the desk where I could reach it, and went back to the window.

He kept a whole desk between us on purpose.

I understood that, and I hated how much I understood it.

"My husband reversed his vasectomy," I said. "He did it six months ago, for a girl who works for him. She sent me a video from my bed."

Cosimo didn't say anything.

"The trust account my mother left me had eleven million dollars in it. This morning it has four hundred and twelve."

"Who has the signing authority?"

"I do. And my father, as the second trustee."

"And you didn't sign."

"No."

He nodded once and did not say he was sorry.

Something in my chest let go, and I put the cup down before I spilled it.

"I'm not going to ask why you called me," he said.

"Thank you."

"I'll help. Ninety days. Whatever you need, my people, my money, my lawyers." He finally looked at me. "After ninety days you don't call this number again."

"Why ninety?"

"Because that's how long it takes to finish this properly."

It wasn't an answer, and we both knew it.

"I have two rules," he said. "Don't touch me, and don't ask me about the last five years."

I laughed, once, and it came out wrong.

"You think I'm going to climb over your desk?"

"I think you're sitting in a room with a man you used to love, on the worst day of your life." His voice stayed level. "Rules keep both of us honest."

"Fine."

"Say it."

"No touching," I said. "No questions about the five years."

"Good."

He looked at my left hand.

I took the ring off and put it in my coat pocket.

It had been on my finger so long that the skin underneath was pale, and neither of us said a word about that either.

Cosimo pulled a grey folder out of his desk drawer and set it in front of me.

"What is this?"

"Two years ago my accounts people noticed a company called Harbor Line Partners leasing berths on my docks. They run everything their clients lease through three banks, and the money kept going to the same place."

I opened the folder.

The first page was a list of transfers, and the second was a company filing with Benton's cousin's name on it.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"I didn't think it was mine to tell." He kept his eyes on the window. "I stopped watching your husband the day you married him. My accountants didn't stop watching his money."

"Two years, Cosimo."

"Your trust account came up flagged three weeks ago. I was going to call you on Monday."

"You were going to call me."

"I had your number," he said. "I didn't know if you'd still pick up."

I couldn't look at him.

So I turned the pages.

Fourteen of them had been countersigned in blue ink, transfers from my trust into Harbor Line Partners, each one signed with my name.

It was a very good copy of my signature.

The loops were right, and the little hook at the end of the L was right.

I stopped on the last one.

It was dated the sixth of March.

"I was in Lisbon that week," I said. "I was at the foundation conference. I have the hotel receipts, and my name is on the speaker list."

"I know."

"Benton stayed home."

"Then someone else signed your name, and he knew exactly when you wouldn't be able to say otherwise."

I laid my hand flat on the page.

The signature was my own, and I hadn't made it.

Cosimo came around the desk, and for one second I thought he'd break his own rule.

He stopped an arm's length away.

"Lydia," he said. "Look at me."

I looked.

"Whoever did this had help from someone who could see your calendar."

I knew what he meant, and I couldn't make myself say it.

Only two people had my calendar besides me: my husband, and my father, who had eaten breakfast with him that morning.

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