“Answer if you want. Speaker.”
I did.
“Hello?”
Adrian exhaled.
“Finally.”
I said nothing.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
Silence.
He hadn’t expected that.
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
“Who’s there?”
“My attorney.”
Another silence.
Then his voice changed.
“Maren, this is getting ridiculous.”
Delaney wrote something on a legal pad and turned it toward me.
LET HIM TALK.
So I did.
“Okay.”
Adrian continued.
“Dad is acting like I stole money.”
I said nothing.
“I didn’t.”
Nothing.
“Mercer Ridge was a legitimate investment.”
Nothing.
“The signature issue was administrative.”
Delaney’s eyebrows rose.
I almost smiled.
Administrative.
He continued.
“Nathan handled it.”
There it was.
Blame.
“I told him you had agreed in principle.”
I finally spoke.
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“No, Adrian.”
My voice remained calm.
“You knew it then.”
Silence.
I looked at the printed email on the desk.
Use the prior signature sample.
He said, “What did Dad show you?”
Delaney shook her head.
I answered differently.
“Enough.”
“Maren, listen.”
“I am.”
“If this turns into a legal fight, everyone loses.”
I looked at Delaney.
She wrote:
ASK WHO EVERYONE IS.
“Who is everyone?”
“What?”
“You said everyone loses. Who?”
“The family.”
“Which family?”
He went quiet.
I continued.
“Your parents?”
“Yes.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Sienna?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Nathan?”
“Maren.”
“Mercer Ridge?”
He stopped.
That was the answer.
He wasn’t calling to save our marriage.
He was calling to save the deal.
I leaned back.
“What do you want?”
“To meet.”
“For what?”
“To work this out privately.”
“What does privately mean?”
“No police. No lawsuits. No company investigation.”
Delaney’s eyes sharpened.
I asked, “And in exchange?”
“I’ll make sure your property is released from the guaranty.”
I stared at the phone.
He had just admitted he believed he had the power to do that.
Delaney wrote rapidly.
KEEP HIM TALKING.
“How?”
“I’ll restructure the loan.”
“With what money?”
“I have investors.”
“Who?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
He exhaled angrily.
“This is why we could never talk.”
There it was again.
Our marriage as a shield.
I almost admired the consistency.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“Did you forge my signature?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Nathan to use a prior signature sample?”
Silence.
Then the line went dead.
Delaney looked at me.
“Well.”
I stared at the phone.
“That sounded bad.”
“For him?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Very.”
Three days later, Adrian hired two attorneys.
One for the divorce.
One for everything else.
He stopped contacting me directly.
The lender suspended enforcement while the signature dispute was investigated.
Richard’s board placed Nathan on leave.
Sienna hired her own attorney.
And then she called me.
“I found something.”
By then, I had learned to hate those words.
“What?”
“An email Adrian sent me eight months ago.”
“What does it say?”
“He said you were willing to invest in Mercer Ridge.”
I closed my eyes.
“Send it.”
She did.
The email was worse than I expected.
Adrian wrote:
Maren has family money she barely touches. She’s cautious, but once she sees the projections, she’ll come around. Worst case, I can structure it so she doesn’t have to deal with the details.
I read the last sentence again.
So she doesn’t have to deal with the details.
That was apparently how my husband described using my assets without my permission.
Sienna called again.
“I believed him.”
“I know.”
“He made you sound…”
She stopped.
“Like what?”
“Difficult.”
I laughed softly.
“Go ahead.”
“Controlling about money.”
“That’s interesting.”
“I know how it sounds now.”
“What else did he say?”
“That you didn’t understand business.”
I looked out the window.
I had a master’s degree in urban planning.
I had managed municipal development projects for six years before starting my own consulting practice.
Adrian knew exactly what I understood.
“He needed you to believe I wouldn’t ask questions,” I said.
Sienna was quiet.
“Yes.”
“And he needed me not to know you existed.”
“Yes.”
We sat in silence on opposite ends of a phone call neither of us had ever expected to have.
Then she said, “I hate him.”
I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me.
“Don’t build your next year around hating him.”
She sounded surprised.
“Why are you helping me?”
“I’m not.”
That came out harsher than I intended.
So I clarified.
“I’m telling you what I wish someone had told me.”
She was quiet.
“Which is?”
“Don’t let what he did decide what you become next.”
I ended the call soon after.
I didn’t want friendship with Sienna.
She had knowingly been involved with a married man, even if Adrian had lied about the state of our marriage.
But reality didn’t require me to flatten her into a villain.
She had made bad choices.
