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“We are,” he said. “That’s why I did this.”
“Just stop. Stop trying to defend yourself. There’s nothing you could say that could even come close to making this okay.” I let out an exasperated sigh and covered my face with my hands, shaking my head. “I can’t believe I was putting myself through all that hassle to make you dinner because I was so proud of what you were doing. I thought you were working so hard. Turns out all you were doing was stealing from me.”
“I wasn’t stealing,” he said. “I was investing. You had all that money sitting there not doing any good for anyone. All you’ve been talking about for years is wanting more security, a bigger house, more opportunities. But you wouldn’t even touch that money. Investing it could get us there faster. It could make far more money far faster than either of us could working regular jobs.”
“So, you stole it.”
“I invested it. I was going to surprise you when all the profits came in,” he said.
I let out a mirthless laugh and shook my head, putting my hands on my hips and staring at him. This couldn’t possibly be the man I’d been in love with. He couldn’t be the person I thought I might spend the rest of my life with. That man wouldn’t betray me like this. He knew how much that money mattered to me. That it was so much more than just the balance on the account.
“You weren’t going to tell me about it at all. If you had any intention of making me a part of it, you would have included me from the beginning. You wouldn’t have gone behind my back and stolen every dollar I had, then handed it over to some incompetent investor to toss away. How could you do something like that?” I asked.
“This was for us.”
He opened his hands, stepping toward me with hope in his eyes, but I backed away from him.
“No. Don’t even try. How could you do this?”
He let out a breath, his hands falling and his expression shifting to something dull and unaffected. “I thought I could get away with it. Honestly, it didn’t seem like it would be that difficult to get past you. Considering I’ve been doing it for the last six months and you didn’t know, I was on the right track. You’re just so blind, Bryn. So stupid when it comes to money. If you didn’t come in here and find those papers, you never would have found out.”
“I never would have found out? How exactly would you explain to me that all my money had disappeared?” I asked.
“I would have figured it out,” he said.
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out. Get out of my house,” I said.
“You can’t be serious,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“I am. This is my house. Get out now.”
I pushed past him into the bedroom and started yanking his clothes down off the hangers in the closet and scooping them up from the drawers in the dresser. He stood in the doorway to the office, watching me when I stopped as I passed to the front door. I opened it and threw everything in my arms out onto the front lawn. He let out a shout to protest, but I didn’t care. Stomping back up to him, I snapped the papers from his hands and went back into the bedroom for more.
“Bryn, stop it. You’re being ridiculous,” he said.
“No, I’m done. I am done with all of this and with you. Get out now before I call the cops.”
I felt a measure of glee when I was finally able to kick him out and throw the rest of his stuff out after him. It stayed like a hum buzzing in my head as I watched him at the window plucking his clothes and other belongings up out of the grass. I walked away just before hearing the door slam closed. The amplified feeling drained out of me when I heard the car pull away.
Sinking down to the floor, I clutched the papers harder in my hands, and the tears came.
It was gone. All of it. My entire inheritance, gone. All the money my mother had worked so hard for her entire life, gone. One of the very few links I had left to her, gone.
Now I had to deal with the reality that I had to figure out what to do next. It wasn’t just about the money being gone. This was an upheaval of my whole existence, and I had to figure out how to rework my life.
I had never relied on it. That was my nest egg, my safety net that protected me in case things went completely wrong.
I dropped my head back against the door and let out a breath. Maybe there was a way I could get it back.
