I wiped my eyes.
“I loved him.”
“I know.”
“I would have worked another twenty years beside him if he had simply told me the truth.”
Grace remained quiet.
I looked at the email again.
“He didn’t need to destroy me to save the restaurant.”
“No,” she said. “He didn’t.”
That was the part I struggled with most.
Not the money.
Not the girlfriend.
Not even the humiliation in the courtroom.
It was the realization that the man I had loved had looked at my loyalty and seen an opportunity.
Six months after the first hearing, the divorce and business disputes reached a settlement conference.
By then, the forensic investigation had identified assets and transfers that had not appeared in Victor’s original financial disclosures.
The restaurant group was independently valued, the disputed accounts were traced as far as the available records permitted, and the parties negotiated over the ownership interest supported by the original partnership agreement.
