“I'm bankrupt.”

Rodney Lambert clutched my hand, his eyes rimmed red.

So I quit my stable job, delivered food by day and worked as a paid chat companion by night, scraping together that astronomical sum for him.

He slowly pulled himself back together. I started getting ringing in my ears, shaking hands, meals at all hours or no hours at all.

That day my fever had only just broken, and I happened to pass down Main Street.

Through the floor-to-ceiling window, there he was, dabbing the mouth of the woman across from him. The steak had two bites out of it. His watch would have taken me three years to earn.

My hot soup spilled all over my shoe.

When I walked in he froze, scrambling to his feet. “She was the one who insisted……”

“Done with the act?”

I set the divorce papers on the table. “You burn through my life, she enjoys your money. You two suit each other.”

Rodney smashed his glass, his voice cracking. “Who gave you the right to decide for me!”

I smiled. “Because at home you wear a ratty T-shirt, but you walk out wearing Jo Malone. A bankrupt man, who can afford that scent?”

His face went bloodless.

The woman rose to leave, but he grabbed my wrist. “Let me explain.”

“Touch me again,” I pulled my hand back, spacing out each word, “and those few shares of yours will be just enough for me to sue you for marital-asset fraud.”

That night, he slid the black card under the door, with a line attached. “Don't go.”

I dialed my lawyer.

……

The lawyer was eating a late dinner when he picked up, the chewing pressed right against the receiver. “You sure?”

“Sure.” I gave him the unit number. “Come now.”

I hung up and sat down in the entryway.

The black card under the door caught the light, like a snake's flicking tongue.

My phone buzzed. He'd sent a voice clip, three seconds. I opened it and there was only the sound of crying.

Another came through. “I'm begging you, don't do this.”

I sent back a period.

The lawyer arrived at two in the morning, carrying a folder and a takeout box of fried noodles.

He came in, caught the smell, and frowned. “There's perfume in your place.”

“He was here.”

“Where is he now?”

“No idea.”

I took the fried noodles. “Maybe at some hotel, maybe crouched in his car. He won't dare go far.”

The lawyer opened the agreement. “This share-transfer part. You want fifty percent?”

“Sixty.”

I snapped apart the disposable chopsticks. “He used company money to plug the hole in that garbage project. I still haven't settled that account with him.”

The lawyer drew a line across the paper. “At sixty percent he'll fight you to the death.”

“Good.”

I swallowed the noodles. “Fighting to the death is exactly what I want from him.”

Before I'd finished the words, someone pounded on the door.

Hard and fast, the whole door shaking with it.

The lawyer glanced through the peephole, then turned and mouthed at me: it's him.

I walked over and pulled the door open.

Rodney was leaning against the frame, hair a mess, shirt collar twisted to one side, a bruise on his face, no telling whether he'd walked into something or someone had hit him.

He saw the lawyer, his pupils contracting, then stared straight at me. “What did you call him here for?”

“You don't get it?”

He reached out to grab my arm. I stepped back, and his hand stopped in midair.

“Listen to me,” his voice was badly hoarse, “that thing at the restaurant——that woman, she's Mr. Chavez's daughter, I had no choice.”

“Mr. Chavez's daughter's steak, and you were feeding it into her mouth?”

I pulled the door wider. “Come in. Standing in the doorway is embarrassing.”

He stumbled a step inside, his eyes sweeping over the folder the lawyer had spread open, his face paling. “What are you two signing?”

“Divorce papers.”

“I won't sign.”

“Suit yourself.”

He suddenly laughed, and on that bruised face the laugh looked vicious. “Sue me with what? Do you have proof? The company's books are spotless. You won't dig up a thing.”

I fished a USB drive out of the shoe cabinet drawer and tossed it onto the coffee table.

He looked at it and went still.

"The combination on the safe in your study is our wedding anniversary."

I said, "Some habits of yours, you haven't changed in ten years."

His lips were trembling.

So were his hands.

He reached for the drive. I pinned it down.

"You touch it, and I call the financial crimes unit right now."

I held his eyes. "Bet on whether I'd dare."

His fingers curled back.

The lawyer cleared his throat beside us. "Mrs. Lambert, I haven't seen what's on this drive."

"You don't need to."

I turned to him. "Sign now, and I only want sixty percent of your shares. Don't sign, and I'll make sure you can't even hold on to the other forty."

He shut his eyes.

When he opened them again the rims were red, and his voice came out soft, almost pleading. "That money, it really was for the company. Once the project goes through, all of it comes back."

"Whether the project goes through has nothing to do with me."

I pushed the pen across to him. "All I know is, the money you've brought home these past six months is less than what I made running food deliveries."

He laughed again, an ugly laugh this time. "You? Running deliveries? You quit your day job?"

"You didn't know?"

"I—"

"There's a lot you don't know."

I cut him off. "You don't know my ears ring so bad I can't sleep till the middle of the night. You don't know my hands shake too much to hold a soup bowl. The only thing you know is what your Jo Malone smells like."

He lowered his head.

His shoulders caved in, like someone had pulled the bones out of him.

"Sign it," I said.

He picked up the pen. The tip hovered over the paper and stayed there a long time.

The lawyer coughed.

He looked up suddenly. "Can I—can I make a call to her?"

"Who?"

"That Mr. Chavez's—I need to know she's safe."

I looked at him and said nothing for a while.

Then I took the pen out of his hand and signed his name for him.

"I'll save you the phone bill."

I slid the agreement over to the lawyer. "Your Ms. Chavez left town an hour ago. Her father just got called in by the regulatory investigators."

The last bit of color drained from his face.

The lawyer gathered up his folder and headed for the door. Passing him, he paused. "Mr. Lambert, I'd advise you to find a lawyer of your own, quickly."

The door closed.

He stood in the middle of the living room like a clay statue.

After a long while he spoke. "When did you find out?"

"The first time you slipped into the study at midnight to take a call."

"Then why did you still—"

"Still scrape money together for you?"

I gave a small laugh. "I wanted to see how long you could keep up the act."

He crouched down and clutched his head with both hands.

His shoulders jerked up and down.

I went back to the bedroom to pack.

I'd zipped the suitcase halfway when I heard him cry out somewhere outside, muffled, like he had his face buried in the couch cushions.

I pulled the door open.

He raised his head, his face streaked with tears. "What's actually on that drive?"

"Last month's fake reports from your company."

"Where did you get them?"

"Your assistant gave them to me."

He froze.

I wheeled the suitcase past him. "You think you're the only smart person in the world?"

At the door I stopped for a step.

"Was it fun, playing me for a fool?"

I didn't look back.

When the door shut behind me, I heard something shatter inside.

Maybe a glass. Maybe something else.

I'd dragged the suitcase to the elevator when Rodney Lambert came running out barefoot.

"Your assistant, when did she—"

He grabbed the elevator door, his knuckles white. "How long has she been working with you?"

The elevator arrived. I stepped in. "She's smarter than you."

He jammed a hand against the door to keep it open. "What did you offer her? I'm the one paying her salary."

"You pay her salary. I provide it."

His hand slackened.

The doors started to close. He shot his arm out again. "Wait."

"Let go."

"At least tell me where you're going."

"None of your business."

The doors closed.

He shouted something through the gap. I didn't catch it.

A neighbor heading down to take out the trash crossed paths with me, eyes dropping to my suitcase.

I gave a small smile. "Business trip."

He nodded and didn't ask more.

The wind poured down my collar the moment I cleared the entrance, and only then did I remember my coat was still inside.

I couldn't be bothered to go back for it. I called a car on my phone.

While I waited, his call came through. I cut it off.

It came again. I blocked him.

Then my phone died.

The heat in the car was on full. The driver glanced at me twice in the rearview mirror. "Where to, miss?"

"Just drive for now."

He laughed. "Running away from home?"

"Getting divorced."

He cleared his throat and turned the mirror back.

I gave him Megan's address.

When I got there she opened the door, hair a mess, half asleep. "At this hour? What are you doing here?"

"It's done."

That woke her up.

She poured me a glass of water. "What did he say?"

"Not much. He signed."

She stared at me for three full seconds. "Could you cry, just a little? You're scaring me like this."

I didn't cry.

I finished the water and splashed my face. She followed and leaned against the bathroom doorframe. "You got the shares?"

"Sixty percent."

"He agreed?"

"His assistant handed me the reports."

She whistled. "That girl's got nerve. Won't he go after her when he finds out?"

"She's already gone."

"Gone where?"

"Don't know. I told her to leave."

She didn't ask again.

The next morning she made porridge. I'd had two spoonfuls when my hand started shaking again.

I set the bowl on the table. She watched and said nothing.

"I'm fine," I said.

"Fine, my ass."

She took the porridge away. "You're going to the hospital."

"No."

"Then you're not staying here."

I looked at her.

She glared right back. "Your hand's shaking like you've got Parkinson's. I mean it."

I went in the afternoon anyway.

The doctor asked a string of questions, then wrote out an order for tests.

While I was in line, I borrowed her phone to log in to my messages. They blew up.

In the company group he'd tagged me a dozen times, asking if anyone had seen me.

No one answered.

I scrolled down. There was one private message, from his assistant. He didn't come to you, did he?

I replied: No.

She wrote back in a second: He called me seventeen times yesterday.

I thought it over. Block him.

She sent back a smiley face.

The tests ran almost until dark. The doctor looked at the results and said I wasn't resting well and wasn't eating enough, and prescribed some vitamins.

I'd just stepped out of the exam room when the phone rang. Megan's number. I picked up, and it was his voice.

"Where are you?"

I hung up.

He called again. I just turned her phone off.

Back downstairs at her place, I saw his black car parked at the curb.

She pulled me toward the side door. He got out and came after us.

"So this is how it is? You're just going to hide from me?"

I turned around. "Are you following me?"

"I've been looking for you all day."

His eyes were ringed dark, like he hadn't slept all night. "I won't go after the assistant. Come back and let's talk this through."

"There's nothing to talk about."

"The money—" He stepped closer. "I'll give you every cent, you keep the shares too, just come back. Can you do that?"