Chapter 9 - Theodore
I met Theodore three weeks later.
I did not intend to.
Lauren’s sister brought him to the district attorney’s office because Lauren was still giving statements and childcare arrangements had collapsed.
I turned a corner.
There he was.
The boy from the photograph sat on a hallway chair swinging his legs.
He held the same red airplane.
My feet stopped.
His hair was lighter than Matthew’s.
His eyes were not.
Theodore looked up at me.
Children recognize nothing about adult betrayal.
To him, I was simply a woman with a cast.
He pointed at it.
“Ouch?”
My throat closed.
“Yes.”
He frowned sympathetically.
“Daddy ouch?”
The question nearly dropped me.
Lauren’s sister appeared.
Her name was Rebecca.
Her face went pale when she recognized me.
“Theo.”
She scooped him up.
“I’m sorry.”
I could not stop looking at him.
He rested his head against her shoulder.
“How long has Matthew been part of his life?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Since birth.”
I nodded.
“Does he call Matthew Daddy?”
“Yes.”
The hallway tilted.
Rebecca started walking away.
“Wait.”
She stopped.
“Does Theodore know Matthew is married?”
The question sounded ridiculous the moment I asked it.
He was two.
Rebecca understood what I meant.
“Lauren never hid you.”
That surprised me.
“What did she tell him?”
“That Daddy had another house.”
Another house.
I gripped the wall.
Matthew had turned my marriage into geography.
A Manhattan house.
A Hamptons house.
A wife in one.
A mistress and son in another.
“How long were they together?”
Rebecca’s face tightened.
“Almost four years.”
Four years.
The same year Owen died.
The same year my shares began disappearing.
Nothing in Matthew’s life happened alone.
Every betrayal overlapped another.
Rebecca lowered her voice.
“My sister did terrible things.”
“Yes.”
“She also believed terrible things.”
“What things?”
“That you knew.”
I laughed.
“She thought I knew my husband had a second family?”
“She said Matthew told her your marriage was contractual.”
My anger sharpened.
“He told her we lived separate lives?”
“Yes.”
“He told her I stayed because of money?”
“Yes.”
I almost admired the efficiency.
To me, Matthew said Lauren was a coworker.
To Lauren, he said I was a ceremonial wife.
To investors, I was a former founder who willingly withdrew.
To the board, I was unstable.
To my father, I was stubborn enough that intervention would only push me closer to Matthew.
He built different versions of me for different audiences.
Then he stood in the center collecting benefits from every lie.
Rebecca adjusted Theodore on her hip.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“She kept journals.”
“Lauren?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She started after Theo was born.”
“Where are they?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Matthew doesn’t know they exist.”
That meant they mattered.
“Tell Richard.”
“I already did.”
She walked away.
Theodore waved his airplane at me.
“Bye.”
I lifted my good hand.
“Bye.”
That night I cried harder than I had since the hospital.
Not because Theodore existed.
Because he proved how much of my life had been fiction.
While I waited for Matthew to come home from supposed investor dinners, he had been reading bedtime stories somewhere else.
While I bought anniversary gifts, he had been choosing nursery furniture.
While I wondered why he no longer talked about having children with me, he already had one.
I remembered the conversations.
“We have time.”
“The company needs me.”
“Children would complicate things.”
“We should travel first.”
Every excuse had concealed another life.
My mother sat beside me.
“I feel stupid.”
“No.”
“I defended him.”
“You loved him.”
“I defended him to Dad.”
“You loved him.”
“I stopped seeing friends because he said they disrespected him.”
“You loved him.”
“I gave him passwords.”
“Clare.”
My mother took my face gently.
“You can call trusting the wrong person many things.”
“Do not call it stupidity simply because he exploited it.”
I closed my eyes.
The next morning, prosecutors executed search warrants on three Marigold-related offices.
They found almost nothing.
Someone had emptied file cabinets.
Computers had been wiped.
Security footage showed two men removing boxes at 3:12 a.m. the morning after the assault.
One man worked for Evan Rourke.
The other was Matthew’s personal driver.
Evan was questioned.
He denied authorizing anything.
Then Richard showed him the footage.
Evan requested a lawyer.
By afternoon, NexusCore’s board placed him on leave.
Matthew’s circle was collapsing one person at a time.
But the company was collapsing too.
A major customer delayed renewal.
Two acquisition targets withdrew.
Employees began leaving.
Financial reporters camped outside headquarters.
My father offered the emergency payroll bridge through a blind trust structure.
The board accepted.
Matthew publicly called it a hostile takeover.
He appeared on television for the first time since his arrest.
I watched from Richard’s office.
Matthew wore navy.
His face looked tired.
Sympathetic.
Human.
He told the interviewer he could not discuss the criminal case.
Then he discussed everything around it.
He said marriages were complicated.
He said powerful families could distort personal disputes.
He said his wife had been under enormous pressure.
He said he prayed for my recovery.
Then the interviewer asked about NexusCore.
Matthew looked directly into the camera.
“My wife’s father has wanted control of this company for more than a decade.”
My father scoffed beside me.
Matthew continued.
“Now he is exploiting a painful family situation to accomplish financially what he could never accomplish competitively.”
The interviewer asked whether my father caused the liquidity crisis.
Matthew smiled sadly.
“I think the facts will eventually speak for themselves.”
Richard turned off the television.
“He’s good.”
I stared at the black screen.
“He always was.”
My father paced.
“We respond.”
“No.”
He stopped.
“Clare.”
“He wants you to respond.”
“He wants a war between Alexander Sterling and Matthew Hayes.”
“He needs me to disappear again.”
My father looked at me.
“So what do you propose?”
I thought about the boardroom.
Owen’s letter.
The forged signatures.
The video.
Theodore.
Then I said something that surprised everyone.
“I go back to NexusCore.”
Richard frowned.
“In what capacity?”
“Founder.”
My father smiled faintly.
“That will irritate him.”
“I’m not doing it to irritate him.”
I looked at the dark television.
May you like
“I’m doing it because he spent seven years convincing everyone I left voluntarily.”
“I want them to see me walk back through the door.”
