SWNOVELS Chapter 45
I stare at the painting of the beach we visited every summer as kids. Every brushstroke is infused with love and joy and reminds me of a simpler time, despite the memories of Mom painting it between chemo and radiation treatments, her body growing frailer each passing day. The light in her eyes when she had a brush in her hands and paint smeared across her cheek couldn’t be dimmed by even the darkest day. She finished it a few months before she died, and that beach is the last place I remember feeling truly happy.
Except that’s not true.
I shake my head, not wanting to think about the last time I was happy. When she sat on my lap in this very office before I left for Chicago. When I almost told her how much I loved her.
My phone vibrates on my desk in front of me, and I answer it without glancing at the screen, thankful for any distraction I can get.
“Mr. James, it’s Ernst. From Persephone’s.”
Why is a guy from a jewelry store I’ve only ever been into twice in my life calling me? And how did he get my fucking number?
Ernst clears his throat when I don’t reply. “Pardon the intrusion, sir, but I have your number on file, and I thought, given that you and your family have been such good customers of ours, you might wish to know …” He coughs but doesn’t continue.
“Know what?”
“For some of our more exclusive, exquisite pieces, we offer a buy-back option, rather than having the piece be sold via another jeweler.”
“So?”
He clears his throat again, clearly uncomfortable. “Your wife returned her engagement ring this afternoon.”
I close my eyes and clench my jaw so tightly that a sharp pain radiates up to my temple. “For how much?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“You understand we can’t offer market value, Mr. James.”
“How much?” I bark.
“One hundred and sixty thousand dollars.”
That’s almost half what I paid for it. Fucking bitch! She sold our fucking marriage for a hundred-sixty grand. “Did she sell her wedding ring too?”
“No, sir. Just the engagement ring.”
Yeah, I guess the wedding band would only be worth ten or fifteen grand, which is chump change in comparison. She’ll likely hold onto that until she finds herself short of cash again. “I want it back.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And I’m not paying a dime over one-sixty.”
“Of course not, sir.”
I end the call and lean back in my chair, my heart pounding in my chest and my temples throbbing. So she sold the ring, but for what? Because that amount of money isn’t worth everything she put herself through by marrying me. Not worth giving up so much of her life for. I guess I have no idea who Melanie Edison is at all.
Rubbing a hand over my jaw, I blow out a breath before I dial my best private investigator. He’s a hacker too—not as good as Jessie Ryan, but this is the type of information he specializes in getting. After a brief conversation, he promises to have Mel’s financial records sent to me within a week.
Not that it will make any difference. Legally the money is hers to do with as she pleases, but maybe finding out what the hell she wants it for will make me feel less like going on a murderous rampage. Or maybe it will have the opposite effect. I guess we’ll wait and see.
Only four days later, I’m staring at an email from my PI. He must have noticed that my work for him has dwindled and wanted to make a solid impression. I click on the link in his email, and the records fill the screen. She has less than two thousand dollars in her account. So where the fuck is my money? Glancing over her recent transactions, I see one payment to Harvard for just shy of forty thousand dollars and another payment to Ashley for the remaining one hundred and twenty grand Mel got for her ring.
And now it makes sense. Ashley has another year at Harvard, and if Melanie wasn’t lying about her brother and the financial abuse, as well as the way he would use their sister to control her, then it adds up that she used that money to secure Ashley’s future.
It doesn’t change what she did. But for some reason, I feel differently knowing that she used the money for someone else. That’s the Melanie I fell in love with, not the woman who lied to my face. My chest aches with the weight of the emotions that rage inside me. I wish I knew which Melanie Edison was the real one.