The Divorce He Asked For, The Empire I Took Away Chapter 09

The Divorce He Asked For, The Empire I Took Away Chapter 09

I rebuilt the timeline.

May: Vanessa moved in with a male roommate. Marcus knew.

June: Vanessa moved out, claimed the landlord charged extra, received $280 from Marcus and $140 from

July through September: no large transfers, but scattered private contact.

October: Marcus began meeting her alone more often.

March: Marcus bought the $420 birthday scarf.

Last week: they traveled to Montauk together, and Vanessa sent me the photograph.

One piece was missing.

Why had she lived with the man for only one month?

I asked Dana to find the man’s name. She said it might take a day or two.

I lay on the hotel bed, but my mind would not stop turning. I kept returning to Vanessa’s words.

[I’m sorry. I couldn’t control myself.]

She had not said she loved Marcus or that they had chosen each other. “Couldn’t control myself” made her

sound passive, carried away by emotion.

Yet every action was deliberate. She moved, accepted the money, posed for the photograph, and sent it to

She had controlled every step perfectly.

Dana called the next evening.

す

The roommate was Derek Shaw. I did not recognize the name, and Dana said he was an ordinary employee at an advertising agency.

“The important part isn’t who he is,” Dana said. “It’s why Vanessa left.”

A former coworker said Derek discovered she was flirting with someone else and told her to move out.

“Who was the other man?” I asked.

Dana did not have a name, but the coworker remembered one thing Vanessa had said after she was forced

out.

[It doesn’t matter. That man’s wife adores me.

I won’t be homeless.]

My hand tightened around the phone.

That man’s wife.

A wife who adored her. A wife who would never let her end up homeless.

I sat by the hotel window as the streetlights came on one by one.

By May, Vanessa was already involved with Marcus.

Maybe it had begun even earlier. She lived with Derek while flirting with my husband, and when Derek threw her out, she turned to me.

She asked me to move her belongings, borrowed cash, came to my home for dinner, and accepted a spare key.

She had not been my best friend. She had been using me as a staircase.

I wrote down everything Dana reported, then added one line.

[Vanessa never wanted only Marcus. She wanted my position.]

Marcus sent a message.

[Vanessa says you recorded her. Delete it before this becomes uglier.]

He was still speaking with her one day after promising to erase every contact.

I saved the message to the cloud and replied with one word.

[Okay.]

I did not say I would delete anything. He could wonder.