I didn’t even look at the caller ID before pressing answer. “Hannah! Hannah, please, I’m so sorry, I swear to God—”
“Trevor? Babe, why are you screaming?”
It wasn’t Hannah. It was Vanessa. Her voice, which had sounded so sultry and comforting just hours ago, now grated on my nerves like broken glass.
“Vanessa,” I choked out, trying to steady my breathing. “I can’t talk right now.”
“What do you mean you can’t talk? You left your favorite Tom Ford sunglasses in my car, and I wanted to know if you wanted me to bring them over tomorrow morning since Hannah has that doctor’s appointment for the baby.”
“Hannah’s gone,” I whispered, the words tasting like ash.
“What?”
“She’s gone, Vanessa! She took Grace. She took the furniture. She took the photos off the wall. She knows everything!” I was shouting now, pacing the empty kitchen, my boots clicking rhythmically against the tile. “She found the receipts, she found the hotel bills, she has photos of us at the Galleria, photos of us at the Omni—”
“Wait, what do you mean she has photos?” Vanessa’s voice dropped its playful tone instantly, replaced by a sharp, defensive edge. “Who took photos?”
“A private investigator! She’s been tracking us for months!” I grabbed the final page of the document, my voice shaking violently. “But that’s not the worst of it, Vanessa. She has the offshore ledger. She has the wire transfers to your shell company. Her father’s firm audited my department. They’re filing for full custody based on financial misconduct and criminal embezzlement!”
There was a long, suffocating silence on the other end of the line. No gasps of shock. No frantic apologies. Just a cold, calculating quiet.
“Vanessa?” I asked, panicked. “Did you hear me? We need to get a lawyer. I need to explain to the board that it was a temporary loan, that you needed it—”
“Trevor, shut up,” Vanessa said, her voice entirely devoid of the warmth she had used to manipulate me for the last seven months. “Listen to me very carefully. I didn’t transfer that money. You did. You were the managing partner. You had the administrative credentials. I never signed a single corporate document.”
I froze, the phone pressed hard against my ear. “What are you talking about? It went into your account! Your company, ‘V.D. Luxury Holdings’!”
“A company that you registered under my name using the power of attorney I signed for my employment contract,” she replied smoothly, her tone turning ice-cold. “If you think I’m going down for your sloppy accounting and your failed marriage, you’re losing your mind. Don’t call this number again, Trevor. My relationship with you was purely professional, and if you claim otherwise, I will file a sexual harassment suit against you with HR before the office opens at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”
Click.
The line went dead.
Into the Abyss
I stared at the black screen of my phone. The room seemed to tilt. The woman I had traded my beautiful, patient wife for, the woman I had spent thousands of dollars on just hours prior, had abandoned me in less than two minutes. The luxury bags sitting by the front door—the Prada, the Louis Vuitton, the Chanel—suddenly looked like brightly colored headstones marking the grave of my entire life.
I was completely, utterly alone.
