“Not enough.”
“And the next funding round?”
“Necessary.”
“How necessary?”
“If it closes, we stabilize.”
“If it doesn’t?”
“We need a restructuring within months.”
I stared at the projections.
Suddenly the affair made sense in a different way.
Julian had not merely hidden another household.
He had constructed his entire life on borrowed time.
He had been telling me the company was thriving.
Telling investors expansion was accelerating.
Telling Lily she was financially secure.
Telling his parents everything would be resolved.
Telling employees a major funding round was days away.
Everyone had been given a separate promise.
Every promise depended on nobody comparing notes.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
Marcus looked surprised.
“You called me.”
“I know. But you came because you want something.”
He hesitated.
“The board needs transparency.”
“Then give them transparency.”
“Julian controls the narrative.”
“Not from a hospital room.”
“That won’t last.”
“No.”
I looked again at the screen.
“But the documents will.”
Marcus studied me.
“What are you planning?”
“Nothing illegal.”
“That is a very lawyer answer.”
“It is also the correct answer.”
I closed the laptop.
“Call an emergency audit committee meeting.”
“On what basis?”
“Related-party transactions and incomplete executive disclosures.”
“He’ll say the expenditures were part of compensation.”
“Then he can explain that.”
“What about the funding round?”
“If the company needs concealment to close financing, the company should not close financing under concealment.”
Marcus rubbed his forehead.
“You know what that could do.”
“Yes.”
“Hundreds of employees.”
“I know.”
“Investors.”
“I know.”
“This can’t become about your marriage.”
I stared at him.
“Marcus, my marriage is why I found the problem. It is not the standard by which you evaluate it.”
That seemed to satisfy him.
He nodded.
“The audit committee meets tomorrow.”
“Good.”
After he left, Jessica entered.
She had clearly been waiting.
“Can I ask one question now?”
“One.”
“Are you going to destroy him?”
I looked at the closed laptop.
“No.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“No?”
“I don’t need to.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means Julian has spent several years building a structure that only works if everyone believes his version of events.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
“All I have to do is stop protecting the walls.”
That afternoon, I met Lily.
Not secretly.
Not strategically ambushing her.
I asked Sandra to give her my number.
Lily called me twenty minutes later.
Her voice trembled.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to you.”
“Neither do I.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We should meet.”
She hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because there is a child involved, because there are financial issues you may not understand yet, and because Julian has apparently spent years deciding what each of us was permitted to know.”
We met at a coffee shop in Tribeca at four.
Public.
Quiet.
Neutral.
Lily arrived ten minutes early.
So did I.
She looked younger outside the hospital.
Not glamorous.
Not calculating.
Terrified.
That complicated things.
I had wanted to hate her.
Hate would have been efficient.
Instead, I saw a woman gripping a paper cup with both hands as if she needed the warmth to hold herself together.
She spoke first.
“He told me you were separated.”
I believed her immediately.
Not because she seemed innocent.
Because that was exactly the lie Julian would choose.
“He said the divorce was taking years because of your business interests,” she continued. “He said you lived together sometimes for appearances.”
“We lived together because we were married.”
Her face drained.
“He said you knew about me.”
“I learned your name yesterday morning.”
She covered her mouth.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
“I was at your apartment once,” she whispered.
That surprised me.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“You were away.”
“Where?”
“Boston, I think.”
I remembered.
A conference.
Three nights.
“He said it was basically his apartment. That you kept a room there because the divorce paperwork wasn’t finished.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
There was always another layer.
“I saw your things.”
“What did he say?”
“That you hadn’t collected everything.”
A laugh escaped me.
Not because it was funny.
Because the scale of it was almost impressive.
Lily was crying silently.
“I feel so stupid.”
“Don’t.”
She looked at me.
“I should have known.”
“Maybe.”
She flinched.
I continued.
“But that is different from saying you deserved to be deceived.”
She looked down.
“I love him.”
“I know.”
“You hate me.”
“I don’t know you well enough to hate you.”
That seemed to hurt more than anger would have.
I softened my voice.
“Lily, I need to ask you about money.”
Her expression changed.
“What money?”
“Your apartment.”
“He pays part of it.”
“Through Hudson Meridian?”
She stared.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Noah’s preschool?”
“Julian handles it.”
“Travel?”
“He usually books things.”
“Car?”
“A company lease.”
I exhaled slowly.