Chapter 3 - MY HUSBAND’S SECOND LIFEThe first major discovery came nine days later.
It wasn’t the debt.
It wasn’t another forged signature.
It wasn’t even the secret apartment Mateo had been paying for in the name of a twenty-six-year-old marketing consultant named Sofia Alvarez.
It was a spreadsheet.
Daniel placed it in front of me at 7:15 on a Monday morning.
“What am I looking at?”
“A payment schedule.”
“To whom?”
“That’s the question.”
Twenty-seven payments had been made over eighteen months from three Valdés companies to an entity called Meridian Advisory Group.
The amounts ranged between twenty thousand and eighty thousand euros.
“What does Meridian do?”
“Apparently nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No employees. No office. No website. No meaningful operating history.”
“Who owns it?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Patricia Valdés.”
I sat back.
Mateo’s mother.
The woman who claimed she didn’t have money to help her son.
The woman who watched him hit me because I refused to give him another hundred thousand.
“How much?”
“Total payments?”
“Yes.”
“Just over nine hundred thousand euros.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak.
“Why?”
“We’re still tracing it.”
A forensic accountant named Lucia Navarro entered with another folder.
She was forty-three, sharp-eyed, and spoke with the calm precision of someone who enjoyed catching liars.
“Because Meridian wasn’t the destination,” Lucia said.
She put down bank statements.
“Money entered Meridian and was distributed.”
“To where?”
Lucia pointed.
“Some returned to Mateo.”
Another line.
“Some went to Richard.”
Another.
“Some paid personal expenses.”
She turned the page.
“And approximately two hundred and eighty thousand was transferred to an account in Monaco.”
“Whose?”
“We don’t know yet.”
My stomach tightened.
“Is this illegal?”
“Moving money isn’t illegal,” Lucia said. “How they accounted for it may be.”
“What did the Valdés companies call these payments?”
“Consulting fees.”
“What consulting?”
“That’s what I asked.”
She smiled without humor.
“There are no reports, invoices, project files, correspondence, deliverables, or evidence that Meridian provided consulting services.”
“So they were pulling money out.”
“That appears likely.”
Daniel folded his arms.
“And some of the money Mateo asked you to contribute may have been filling the holes created by those withdrawals.”
I stared at him.
Suddenly, every desperate request made sense.
Mateo wasn’t building a company.
He was feeding a machine.
His family removed money.
Mateo scrambled to replace it.
When banks refused, he came to me.
When I resisted, he manipulated me.
When manipulation stopped working, he hit me.
“Claire,” Daniel said carefully, “there’s something else.”
My body tensed.
“What?”
“The apartment.”
He slid another document forward.
Lease agreement.
Calle de Velázquez.
Luxury building.
Two-bedroom apartment.
Monthly rent: €6,800.
Tenant: Sofia Alvarez.
Guarantor: Mateo Valdés.
I stared at the signature.
This one was definitely his.
“How long?”
“Seventeen months.”
I felt strangely calm.
“Is she his mistress?”
“We don’t know.”
“I do.”
“Claire—”
“He always smelled like jasmine after late meetings.”
Neither Daniel nor Lucia spoke.
I remembered the first time I noticed it.
Mateo had arrived home after midnight and kissed my forehead.
Jasmine.
When I asked, he said the restaurant had flowers.
I wanted to believe him.
So I did.
I picked up the lease.
“Is she involved in the companies?”
“She received approximately one hundred and forty thousand euros in consulting payments.”
“Of course she did.”
My phone buzzed.
I almost laughed when I saw the name.
Mateo.
He had spent nine days sending alternating messages.
I love you.
You’re destroying our family.
I’m worried about you.
You’re mentally unstable.
Please come home.
My attorney says you’re committing financial abuse.
That last one had been particularly creative.
This time he wrote:
Dinner tonight. Public place. No arguments. We need to discuss something important.
Daniel saw the message.
“No.”
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“I need to see him.”
“For what?”
“To find out what he knows.”
Lucia shook her head.
“He assaulted you.”
“Public place.”
“He can still manipulate you.”
That hurt because it was true.
I looked at Daniel.
“You can put security nearby.”
He stared at me.
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Probably.”
“And you’re going anyway.”
“Yes.”
He exhaled.
“Then we control the environment.”
At eight that evening, I entered a crowded restaurant near Retiro Park.
Mateo was already seated.
He stood when he saw me.
For a second, I remembered why I had fallen in love with him.
Mateo could be breathtaking when he wanted to be.
Dark hair.
Expensive navy suit.
Warm brown eyes capable of making a room feel smaller when they focused on you.
Then I remembered his hand striking my face.
I sat.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Don’t.”
His smile faded.
“I deserve that.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been going crazy.”
“I’m sure.”
“Claire, I’m sorry.”
“For hitting me?”
“For everything.”
Interesting.
I placed my handbag beside me.
“What does everything include?”
His eyes flickered.
“Being angry. Pressuring you. Letting my parents interfere.”
“What else?”
“That’s why I wanted to meet.”
The waiter poured water.
Mateo waited until he left.
“My company is in trouble.”
“I know.”
His face changed.
“How much do you know?”
“Enough.”
“Daniel is poisoning you against me.”
“No. Bank records are doing a pretty good job.”
He went pale.
“Claire—”
“Who is Sofia?”
His mouth closed.
There it was.
No confusion.
No Who?
He knew immediately.
“Claire.”
“Who is she?”
“A consultant.”
“Who lives in an apartment you pay for.”
His jaw tightened.
“It’s not what you think.”
That phrase.
The unofficial anthem of guilty husbands.
“Then explain it.”
“She went through a divorce.”
“How charitable.”
“I helped her.”
“With company money?”
“No.”
“With my money?”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
Mateo leaned closer.
“Why are you doing this?”
I almost laughed.
“You hit me.”
“I apologized.”
“You stole from me.”
His entire body froze.
There.
That was what I had come for.
The reaction.
“Who told you that?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because it’s a lie.”
“Someone forged my signature.”
“I never forged anything.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
Silence.
Mateo realized the mistake.
I watched panic move behind his eyes.
“You need to stop listening to Daniel.”
“Why?”
“Because Bellrose is more complicated than you understand.”
Now it was my turn to go still.
He knew.
“How do you know about Bellrose?”
Mateo reached for his water.
Too quickly.
“Your grandmother mentioned it.”
“She never discussed Bellrose with you.”
“She must have.”
“No.”
He looked toward the restaurant entrance.
Daniel’s security contractor was seated two tables away, pretending to read messages on his phone.
Mateo didn’t recognize him.
“Claire, listen to me.”
“I am.”
“There are investors involved. Loans. Employees. Hundreds of families. If you start interfering because you’re angry with me, innocent people get hurt.”
“I’m not interfering.”
“You ordered an audit.”
“Who told you?”
He didn’t answer.
“Who told you, Mateo?”
“My father has contacts.”
“With Bellrose?”
“Everywhere.”
I leaned back.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Then he can hear this through one of his contacts.”
Mateo’s expression hardened.
“I’m listening.”
“I will not sell my Bellrose shares to your family.”
His hand tightened around the glass.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You were going to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.”
For the first time that evening, the mask slipped.
“You think you can walk into this world because your grandmother left you some paper and suddenly become a property executive?”
There he was.
The real Mateo.
I smiled.
“You’ve spent six years telling me I’m too emotional to manage money.”
“You are.”
“Too naive to understand contracts.”
“You don’t understand them.”
“Too soft to make business decisions.”
“Because you are.”
“And yet somehow you’ve spent the last year begging me for cash.”
He stared at me.
The table went silent around us despite the restaurant noise.
I leaned forward.
“So tell me, Mateo. Which one of us can’t manage money?”
His face reddened.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m surviving it.”
His voice dropped.
“You want revenge.”
“I want the truth.”
“You couldn’t handle the truth.”
“Try me.”
Mateo looked at me for a long time.
Then he said something I didn’t expect.
“Your grandmother wasn’t the woman you think she was.”
My blood ran cold.
“What does that mean?”
“She destroyed people.”
“Who?”
“My grandfather.”
“How?”
“She stole Bellrose from him.”
I stared at him.
“That’s not what the records show.”
“Records can be created.”
“So can lies.”
He stood.
“Sell the shares, Claire.”
Finally.
There it was.
“How much?”
“Five million.”
I almost smiled.
Grandmother’s Bellrose stake was worth at least forty-seven million.
Possibly more.
“You’re offering five million for controlling interest.”
“It’s fair.”
“No.”
“Ten.”
“No.”
“Fifteen.”
I stood.
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“You don’t know what you’re holding.”
“I’m beginning to.”
“You are going to regret this.”
The restaurant suddenly seemed quieter.
I looked him in the eyes.
“You said that before.”
Then I left.
Daniel’s security man followed at a distance.
Outside, my phone rang.
Lucia.
I answered.
“You were right to meet him,” she said without greeting.
“What happened?”
“We found the Monaco account.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Who owns it?”
Lucia paused.
“Sofia.”
I closed my eyes.
“And there’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“Tomorrow morning, I need you to see a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
May you like
Lucia’s voice became quieter.
“One that may explain why Mateo is terrified of the Bellrose audit.”
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