The Wife He Left Behind novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Signed

Cassia's POV

Tobias came to my kitchen on the nineteenth of December, and he knocked.

It was the first time in six years.

He was in last month's suit, rumpled, and he had a lawyer with him, a young one with a briefcase and a pale, stubborn jaw.

I had the papers laid out on the table in two neat stacks.

Joan sat at the end with her reading glasses on, and Stellan leaned in the doorway with his thermos.

"Sit," I said.

Tobias sat.

He looked around at the room he'd eaten breakfast in for six years.

I watched him look for the moment where this was still his.

"The board met for nine hours," he said.

"I heard."

"They've put me on leave without pay. Pending an audit."

"I heard that too."

"They want thirty-three thousand six hundred dollars back."

"Seven months at forty-eight hundred," I said. "I can do math."

He gave a short, mirthless laugh.

"I gave that company my whole life."

"You gave them a flat on Orchard Road that was empty."

The lawyer cleared his throat.

"Mr. Reiner is prepared to discuss terms."

"These are the terms," I said.

I slid the first stack across.

"The house goes to me. You sign the deed over this afternoon.

"My grandfather's money stays mine, and so does everything in the account in my name.

"You keep your car and the loan on it.

"You pay the company back out of what's yours."

"That's everything," Tobias said.

"It's what's mine."

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