PART 2
By Saturday afternoon, Rowan finally remembered that he had a wife in the hospital. Still, it wasn’t enough for him to come.
He texted: Mom thinks you owe her an apology for making her birthday stressful.
I handed the phone to my father. Dad’s jaw clenched. “Do you want me to destroy him?”
“No,” I said. “I want him to destroy himself.”
For months, I had been examining our finances because the numbers no longer added up. Rowan earned well as a senior acquisitions manager at Sterling Capital, yet our savings continued disappearing. He blamed the mortgage and “baby expenses.”
The truth was sitting in a folder on my encrypted laptop. Seventeen transfers totaling $86,400 had moved from our joint account into an LLC controlled by Selina. Rowan had also used an electronic copy of my signature to guarantee a $240,000 business loan for her failing luxury-event company.
Worse, the application named my inherited condominium as collateral. My condominium.
I had uncovered the forged guarantee eleven days before labor. I had intended to confront him after the baby was born because I wanted evidence, not accusations. Now I had the clarity I needed.
I called my attorney, Mabel Davis.
“Freeze what we legally can,” I said. “Dispute the guarantee. Prepare the separation petition. Document every transfer.”
“You’re sure?”
I looked at Leo sleeping beside me. “Yes.”
Meanwhile, Rowan became even bolder. Selina posted pictures from a three-day resort weekend: champagne, spa robes, a private dining room, and Rowan smiling beneath the caption FAMILY COMES FIRST.
Rowan also sent me a photo of Selina blowing out candles. Beside it he wrote, See? Everything is fine when people stop overreacting.
I saved that message too. By then, every cruel sentence had stopped feeling like a wound and started becoming evidence.
One photograph actually made me laugh. A platinum watch was sitting on Rowan’s wrist. Not Selina’s gift. His. I recognized the $18,700 charge from the statements he assumed I never examined.
Sunday night, Dad opened his tablet. “There’s something you should see.” Rowan’s department at Sterling Capital was already under internal review. An acquisition he had championed involved a vendor connected to Selina’s LLC. He had failed to disclose the relationship. “Did you start this?” I asked.
