Chapter 15 - The Unwelcome Return
I was sitting on the front porch of my parents' farmhouse, nursing a hot cup of coffee, when the beat-up local taxi pulled into the gravel driveway. The dust plumed into the air as the car came to a harsh stop.
The back door opened, and Mark stepped out. He looked absolutely destroyed. He was wearing the same designer polo shirt he had left in, but now it was wrinkled and stained. He had three days of stubble, dark circles under his eyes, and a look of pure, unadulterated desperation on his face.
He hadn't gone to our house in the suburbs. He had come straight here.
"Sarah," he rasped, walking up the porch steps. He didn't look arrogant anymore. He looked like a beaten dog. "Sarah, please. You have to listen to me."
I didn't move. I just took a sip of my coffee. "I'm listening, Mark. Go ahead."
"The accounts... the money..." He swallowed hard, looking around to see if my father was nearby with a shotgun. "I know how it looks. But it's a misunderstanding. Mia is just a friend, and she was going through a hard time, and..."
"And she needed thousands of dollars in IVF treatments to have your baby?" I interrupted, my voice flat.
Mark froze, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. "I... you..."
"Dr. Evans called me, Mark. She needed to know why the payment was declined for the next cycle." I set my mug down on the wooden side table. The sharp clack echoed in the quiet evening air. "I also saw the emails. The jewelry receipts. The romantic dinners. Did you really think you could fund a secret second life using my grandfather’s money and I would never notice?"
"It wasn't your money!" he suddenly snapped, the old, entitled Mark flashing through his desperate facade. "We are married! That money was marital property!"
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"Actually, it wasn't," I smiled, pulling a folded piece of paper from my pocket and tossing it onto the porch floor at his feet. "You should read the terms of the trust my parents set up. Inheritance kept in a separate, original account is protected. You committed fraud by transferring it into the joint account without my signature. My lawyer is very excited to talk to the judge about it."
Mark stared at the paper as if it were a venomous snake. The reality of his situation was finally crashing down on him.
