Chapter 7 - THE HUSBAND WHO THOUGHT SHE WOULD RETURN
Damian called Vivien seventeen times that evening.
She answered the eighteenth.
"Where are you?"
"At home."
"Which home?"
"The one that belongs to me."
He went silent.
Vivien had moved into the Ashcroft townhouse that morning.
The property had been in her family for generations.
Damian had never liked it.
He said the rooms were too small.
Vivien had always loved the place.
Its library smelled of cedar.
The kitchen windows overlooked a courtyard garden.
And nobody there expected her to spend every waking hour managing someone else's crisis.
Damian finally spoke.
"You're being unreasonable."
Vivien closed her eyes.
"What do you want?"
"I want you to stop this."
"Which part?"
"The audit. The council. The humiliation."
Vivien looked at the papers on her desk.
"Damian, did you authorize transfers from the Ashcroft Foundation?"
A pause.
"Those accounts are complicated."
"Did you authorize them?"
"Vivien—"
"Yes or no?"
He exhaled sharply.
"I signed what Kessler recommended."
"Without consulting the trustees?"
"I was trying to protect our position."
"By taking money intended for families?"
"Don't make me sound like a criminal."
Vivien stared at the phone.
For years, she had defended Damian against people who assumed the worst of him.
Now she was hearing him defend the indefensible.
"You need legal counsel," she said.
He laughed.
"You're my wife."
"That doesn't answer my question."
"Come home."
Vivien looked at the bare place on her finger.
"No."
His voice softened.
"Viv."
The old nickname hurt.
For a moment, she remembered their first apartment.
Their wedding.
The nights he'd come home exhausted and fallen asleep with his head in her lap.
Then she remembered his hands removing the necklace.
The look on Seline's face.
The silence of two hundred people.
"No," she repeated.
Damian's voice hardened.
"You'll regret this."
Vivien ended the call.
May you like
She sat quietly for a long time.
Then she opened her laptop and began preparing the next day's meeting.
