He Used My Salary to Fund Her Luxury Life? Oops I Just Dropped the Audit on His Head novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Thirty-One B

In the lobby of Marlowe Tower Nadine films Trevor and the woman in the silk dress while the residents watch. In the garage he tells her she signed a power of attorney at their wedding, and that if she audits him she audits herself.

The lobby of Marlowe Tower had a marble floor, a wall of orchids, and half a dozen people waiting for elevators.

Trevor stood in front of the middle one with the black bag in his hand.

I took my phone out and started recording.

"Trevor."

He turned, and his face did three things in a row.

First it went blank, then it went pale, and then it smiled.

"Nadine," he said. "Babe. What are you doing here?"

"I came to ask you where my paycheck goes."

"Not here." He glanced at the woman holding a small white dog. "Let's talk at home. It's a payroll glitch, I told you."

"Then why is your car parked outside a building I've never been in?"

"A client lives here. I'm dropping off documents."

"The doorman said Ms. Ainsworth is expecting you."

Trevor laughed.

It was a good laugh, easy and fond, the one that had gotten me through seven years.

"Ms. Ainsworth is the client," he said, to the whole lobby. "My wife has been under a lot of stress at work."

A man in an overcoat looked me up and down.

The woman with the dog took a step back.

I felt it happen again, the thing from the restaurant, a room deciding what I was.

This time I was holding a camera.

"Then show me the documents," I said. "They're in that bag?"

"It's a gift for a client. It's private."

"It's from Daubigny Jewelers."

He said nothing.

The middle elevator opened with a soft chime.

A woman stepped out in a cream silk dress and bare feet, with her blonde hair falling over one shoulder.

She was tall, and she was beautiful, and she was twenty-eight at most.

"Trev, you're late," she said. "Who is this?"

"Nobody, Cass. Go back up."

"I'm his wife," I said.

The woman looked at me and then at him.

Something moved across her face and went away.

"The wife he's divorcing," she said. "The one who keeps calling him at night."

I had not called him once at night.

"Is that what he told you?" I asked.

"He told me you were difficult. He said you were unstable about money."

Trevor put a hand on her arm.

"Cass, please."

"No, let her talk," Cassidy said. "She's the one standing in my building."

There was a thin diamond bracelet on her wrist, bright under the lobby lights.

I could not price it, but I could guess whose money had.

"Thank you," I said. "I'll talk."

I raised my voice enough for the elevators to hear.

"Daubigny Jewelers, fourteen thousand two hundred dollars. A hotel in Paris, four nights in March, charged to account 4471."

"Nobody here has to believe me. The bank has the records."

"Account 4471 is in my name, and it gets my salary."

"Forty-one thousand three hundred dollars on the first of every month, for six years."

The woman with the dog stopped petting it.

Cassidy laughed, but it came out thin.

"That's Trevor's fund," she said. "He has a private fund. That's how he pays for everything."

"Trevor has no fund," I said. "He has me."

Nobody in the lobby made a sound.

Cassidy looked at the bracelet on her own wrist.

For the first time she looked at Trevor, really looked, and she did not like what she saw.

"Trev," she said quietly. "What is she talking about?"

"She is sick, Cass. She has been sick for a while."

He took my elbow in a grip that looked gentle and was not.

"I'm walking my wife to her car," he said to the lobby. "Everyone, I'm sorry for the scene."

He steered me through a side door and down a ramp into the parking garage.

I kept the phone up, and he let me, because he knew every word of this would be said again somewhere else.

He stopped between two concrete pillars where the cameras did not reach.

The warmth went out of his face all at once.

"Give me the phone."

"No."

"Nadine, you are going to delete that video, and you are going to withdraw whatever you sent to your board."

"How do you know I sent something to my board?"

I had not told him.

I had not told anyone but the people on that executive list.

He smiled, and it was the first smile of his I had ever been afraid of.

"Babe, you signed a power of attorney at our wedding," he said. "You never read it, because you never read anything I handed you."

"Every account, every form, every deposit. They all have your signature on them."

"And they all have your handwriting."

He leaned close and spoke softly into my ear.

"You can audit me all you want, sweetheart. But if you do, you are going to be auditing yourself."

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