Chapter 5 - The Wife He Never Investigated
Julian laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because arrogance sometimes laughs when fear becomes too embarrassing.
“You think owning an apartment makes you powerful?”
“Penthouse.”
His jaw tightened.
“You’ve been sitting around this place for years doing nothing.”
That was the part I’d been waiting for.
Nothing.
According to Julian, I was a stay-at-home wife living on his success.
He had never asked why I’d stopped working.
He simply assumed pregnancy and marriage had transformed me into someone dependent.
Before meeting Julian, I had spent eleven years building a financial technology company with my college roommate, Rebecca Sloan.
We began with six employees.
Then twenty.
Then four hundred.
Six years earlier, we sold a controlling stake.
I remained a silent equity holder through a private investment structure.
Julian knew I had worked in technology.
He never asked for details.
When we married, he assumed whatever money I had earned had been spent.
I allowed him to assume.
Not because I was playing games.
Because I wanted a husband, not someone evaluating my net worth.
But there was something else Julian didn't know.
His current employer, Hudson Meridian Development, leased several commercial properties.
Three of those buildings belonged to investment partnerships in which my trust held significant interests.
I had never interfered with his career.
Never contacted his executives.
Never used my position against him.
But I knew far more about the financial world Julian bragged about than he imagined.
He stared at me.
“How much money do you have?”
I smiled sadly.
“That’s your first question?”
Eleanor answered for him.
“Obviously.”
Thomas looked uncomfortable.
I didn’t.
“Enough that your salary was never the reason I married you.”
Julian’s eyes shifted toward the windows.
Then the furniture.
Then the artwork.
As if everything had suddenly acquired a different meaning.
Eleanor recovered first.
“Well, wonderful.”
She smiled.
“Then there’s no problem.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“If you have money, Julian giving his salary to me shouldn't matter.”
I almost admired the audacity.
Then Julian’s phone rang.
Preston.
His brother.
Julian answered immediately.
“Did Mom give you my money?”
Silence.
Then Preston apparently said something that made Julian sit down.
“What do you mean you sold it?”
I looked at Eleanor.
Her face had turned completely white.
Julian stood again.
“Sold what?”
Then Preston’s answer came loudly enough that even I heard it.
“The investment account Mom put in my name.”
Eleanor lunged for the phone.
“Hang up!”
Julian pushed her hand away.
May you like
And for the first time that night, he looked at his mother the way he had been looking at me.
Like a stranger.
