Chapter 3 - MY SIGNATURE ON DOCUMENTS I HAD NEVER SEENBy eight the next morning, I had learned there are several different kinds of betrayal.
There is emotional betrayal—the kind that arrives as another woman's message on your husband's phone.
There is physical betrayal—the knowledge that the person who kissed you goodnight had been touching someone else.
Then there is calculated betrayal.
Calculated betrayal comes with signatures.
Account numbers.
Notarized documents.
And meetings you never attended.
Colonel Bennett's attorney, Thomas Reeves, arrived at our house at 8:07 a.m. carrying two leather folders and the expression of a man who had spent the previous night discovering something he wished he hadn't.
Margaret was upstairs with Noah and Liam.
Daniel sat beside me.
Tom opened the first folder.
“Before we begin, Natalie, I need you to understand that I'm counsel for Daniel and the Bennett Family Investment Trust. I'm not your personal attorney.”
“I understand.”
“I strongly recommend you retain independent counsel today.”
“I will.”
He slid a page toward me.
“Have you ever seen this document?”
I looked at it.
CONSENT TO PARTIAL REDEMPTION OF BENEFICIAL INTEREST.
My name appeared at the bottom.
Natalie Claire Bennett.
The signature looked like mine.
Close enough that I might have believed it if I hadn't known better.
“No.”
Tom placed another document down.
Another signature.
Then another.
There were six in total.
All supposedly signed by me.
All connected to transfers from the marital investment trust.
“How much?” I asked.
Tom looked at Daniel.
Daniel nodded.
Tom said, “Approximately eleven-point-eight million dollars in value was transferred or restructured over the past four years.”
I forgot how to breathe.
“Eleven million?”
“Eleven-point-eight.”
“Where did it go?”
“Some converted into company shares held through other entities. Some appears to have been pledged in connection with financing.”
“Entities owned by Marcus?”
“We're still determining that.”
I looked at the signatures again.
For years, Marcus handled the complicated pieces of our finances.
Not because I was incapable.
Before leaving the workforce, I had been a senior analyst at an investment firm.
But marriage had a way of creating divisions of labor.
I handled the household.
The children we'd spent years trying to have.
His travel.
Our social obligations.
He handled the business entities.
Our taxes.
Insurance.
Long-term investments.
I trusted him.
That was the mistake underneath every other mistake.
The front door opened.
I jumped.
But it wasn't Marcus.
A woman walked in behind Daniel.
Mid-forties.
Dark blue suit.
Leather briefcase.
Sharp eyes.
“Natalie Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“Rebecca Sloan.”
She extended her hand.
“Family law and financial litigation.”
I glanced at Daniel.
He said, “I called her.”
Rebecca immediately added, “Mr. Bennett isn't hiring me. If you retain me, I represent you and only you.”
That mattered.
I liked that she said it before sitting down.
For the next two hours, Rebecca asked questions.
When had Marcus first started the company?
What did I contribute?
What assets existed when we married?
What did we buy afterward?
Had I signed a prenuptial agreement?
No.
Postnuptial?
No.
Had Marcus ever asked me to sign trust documents?
Possibly routine tax paperwork, but never anything involving millions of dollars.
Rebecca studied the copies.
“If these signatures were forged, that's potentially more than a divorce issue.”
Tom nodded.
“Agreed.”
I felt nauseated.
“Could Rachel be involved?”
Rebecca's expression remained neutral.
“Right now, Rachel is emotionally important but legally secondary unless money was transferred to her.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Emotionally important.
Legally secondary.
It was exactly what I needed to hear.
Because I wanted to hate Rachel.
It was easier to hate the stranger than accept what my husband had done.
But Rachel hadn't forged my signature.
At least, not that we knew.
Rachel hadn't stood beside me in a hospital and kissed my forehead after our sons were born.
Marcus had.
My phone buzzed.
A text.
Marcus: My attorney says you have representation now. Good. I'll be at the house at six to see the boys.
Rebecca read it after I showed her.
“Has he been living here?”
“Until yesterday.”
“Any threats?”
“Only about custody.”
Her gaze sharpened.
“What did he say?”
I repeated the conversation.
She made a note.
“Save every message. Don't argue by text. Don't block access to the children unless there is a safety concern. And don't discuss strategy.”
“What if he asks about the trust?”
“He will.”
“What do I say?”
“Tell him all communication regarding finances goes through counsel.”
Simple.
At 5:58 p.m., Marcus returned.
He carried flowers.
That almost made me laugh.
“They're for you,” he said.
I stared at the bouquet.
“Why?”
“Because this is ugly enough.”
“You brought flowers the day after giving me divorce papers?”
“I don't want us becoming enemies.”
I looked at him for several seconds.
“Then why did you forge my signature?”
Everything stopped.
Marcus's expression changed for less than a second.
But I saw it.
That was enough.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“The trust.”
“Dad had no right to show you—”
“He didn't need the right, Marcus. My name is on the documents.”
“You signed financial paperwork all the time.”
“I did not authorize eleven-point-eight million dollars in transfers.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Rebecca Sloan is filling your head with nonsense.”
Interesting.
I hadn't told him Rebecca's name.
“You've been talking to your lawyer.”
“Of course.”
“No. You've been asking who I hired.”
His jaw tightened.
“I'm trying to understand what you're doing.”
“For the first time in nine years, so am I.”
He walked past me.
“I'm seeing the babies.”
I didn't stop him.
Thirty minutes later, I found Marcus in the nursery holding Noah.
He looked natural.
Tender, even.
That was what made everything so confusing.
People want villains to look evil every second.
Marcus didn't.
He could betray me and still love his sons.
He could lie about millions and still kiss Noah's tiny forehead.
Humans were more complicated than the stories we tell about them.
Then his phone buzzed on the changing table.
He glanced at it.
Rachel.
He declined the call.
“Answer it,” I said.
“This isn't the time.”
“It became the time when you destroyed our family for her.”
Marcus carefully placed Noah in the crib.
“You think this is about Rachel.”
“Isn't it?”
“No.”
I stared at him.
He lowered his voice.
“Our marriage was already suffocating me.”
I laughed once.
“During which month of my pregnancy did you decide that?”
“Natalie.”
“No, I'm curious.”
“You stopped being my partner.”
“I was carrying twins.”
“Before that.”
I felt something sharp behind my ribs.
“We spent three years going through fertility treatment.”
“I know.”
“You wanted children too.”
“I did.”
“Then what exactly did I do wrong?”
He looked exhausted.
And for one brief, foolish moment, I wondered if he might finally tell me the truth.
Instead he said:
“You made everything about what we were building for later. The house. The company. Kids. Retirement. There was never any room to just live.”
I stared at him.
“And Rachel makes you feel alive?”
He didn't answer.
Which meant yes.
I nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
He frowned.
“Okay?”
“Yes. That's the answer I needed.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can stop trying to understand how I could have prevented this.”
His expression hardened.
“You weren't innocent in our marriage.”
“I never said I was.”
I stepped closer.
“But I didn't cheat. I didn't hide millions. And I didn't put forged signatures on legal documents.”
“I did not forge anything.”
“Then you won't mind a forensic document examiner.”
For the first time, Marcus looked genuinely alarmed.
Only briefly.
Then he smiled.
“Be careful, Natalie.”
“With what?”
“With letting Dad turn this into some kind of crusade. He's always wanted control.”
“This isn't about your father.”
“It will be.”
He picked up his jacket.
“Rachel and I are getting married after the divorce.”
I thought I had prepared myself.
I hadn't.
“You've already discussed marriage?”
“She deserves stability.”
I almost couldn't speak.
“She deserves stability?”
“She is carrying my child.”
I pointed toward the cribs.
“So did I.”
Marcus went quiet.
I opened the nursery door.
“I think you should leave.”
He did.
Later that night, after the boys finally fell asleep, Rebecca called.
“We found something.”
My heart accelerated.
“What?”
“One of the entities receiving trust assets purchased real estate fourteen months ago.”
“Where?”
“Georgetown.”
I waited.
“A town house. Three-point-six million.”
“Owned by Marcus?”
“Indirectly.”
“Does Rachel live there?”
“We're checking.”
Then Rebecca said, “There's something else.”
Of course there was.
“What?”
“The entity paid substantial consulting fees last year.”
“To whom?”
She paused.
“Rachel Collins.”
I closed my eyes.
“How much?”
“Eight hundred and forty thousand dollars.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
Rachel wasn't merely having an affair with my husband.
Money connected to an asset carrying my forged signature had apparently reached her.
Nearly a million dollars.
I walked to the nursery and stared at my sleeping sons.
Three days earlier, I had believed my biggest problem was surviving another sleepless week.
Now I was facing a divorce, a custody threat, an affair, and millions of dollars moving through entities I had never heard of.
Rebecca spoke again.
“Natalie?”
“Yes.”
“Don't confront either of them.”
“I won't.”
“And change every password you control tonight.”
I looked toward Marcus's empty side of the bed.
“Already did.”
But at 11:43 p.m., my phone lit up.
Unknown number.
A text.
You don't know the whole story.
Then another.
Marcus has been lying to both of us.
May you like
And finally:
This is Rachel. We need to meet.
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