You can be angry about that later. Right now, tell me why you lied about your trip. She stared at me, then shook her head. I don't owe you explanations. There it was.
After 24 years of marriage, 5 days of silence, and months of unexplained financial transfers, that was the answer she chose. I nodded once. Fine. She seemed thrown by my response. Fine.
You're right. You don't owe me explanations, and I don't owe you another chance to decide whether you want to be married to me. I reached for the folder and slid it across the table. Julia looked down at it. What is this?
Open it. She pulled out the first document. Her eyes moved across the page and her mouth tightened. Divorce papers. The process has already started.
Patricia Shaw is representing me. She dropped the document onto the table. Are you serious? You're divorcing me because I needed 5 days to myself? No, I'm divorcing you because you lied about where you were, concealed money from our marriage, and started arranging a life with another man while pretending everything was normal.
You don't know what you're talking about. Then the report should make things clearer." She opened the next section. The first photographs showed her with Colin outside the hotel. Another showed them entering the apartment complex.
She flipped through the pages faster, her breathing becoming shallow. "These pictures don't prove anything," she said. I pointed to the next page. Keep reading. She turned the page.
Then she stopped. Her eyes settled on the documented transfers, the private mailbox registration, and the apartment lease. The confident expression she'd brought through the front door was gone. "Where did you get this?" she whispered. I leaned back in my chair.
"You said you didn't owe me explanations, Julia. I'm not asking for any now." She looked at me, then back at the folder. For the first time that evening, she had nothing to say, and I hadn't even shown her the last document. Julia kept staring at page 11.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the paper, and she read the apartment lease again, as if the words might change. "You went through my private information," she said. "I reviewed our financial records. I hired a licensed investigator to document what he could establish legally, and I consulted an attorney. Everything in that folder has a source.
You had no right to do this behind my back. I looked at her. You've been moving our money into a private account for months. You've been meeting another man and arranging an apartment with him. You disappeared for 5 days without making one phone call.
And you want to lecture me about doing things behind your back? She opened her mouth, then closed it. I pulled the final document from the folder and placed it in front of her. It was a timeline Liam had prepared, matching the dates of the financial transfers with Julia's apartment visits and meetings with Colin. Look at the dates, I said.