Chapter 2 - WHAT LILY HAD BEEN TOLD
Nolan recovered first.
“You misunderstood me.”
Robert did not answer.
The cashier, a college-aged woman who had been pretending to straighten reusable bags, suddenly found great purpose in rearranging them.
Lily could feel June breathing against her chest.
“What account?” Lily asked.
Nolan lowered his voice. “Not here.”
“What account?”
“Lily.”
Her father picked up the formula and paid with a different card.
The transaction took less than twenty seconds.
It felt longer.
Outside, freezing air hit Lily’s face as the automatic doors opened. Nolan followed her toward their Subaru while Robert walked behind them carrying the grocery bag and formula.
“Get in the car,” Nolan said.
Lily stopped.
“No.”
“We’ll talk at home.”
“My dad just said he’s been sending me eighty thousand dollars a month.”
“It isn’t what it sounds like.”
“Then tell me what it sounds like.”
Nolan glanced at Robert.
That glance mattered.
Lily had seen it before without understanding it: at Thanksgiving when Robert’s controller asked whether their account information was current; at June’s baby shower when Robert mentioned quarterly statements; in October when an envelope from Hale Family Office arrived and Nolan picked it up before Lily could.
Nolan had always had an explanation.
Tax stuff.
Your dad’s paperwork.
Nothing you need while you’re pregnant.
Robert put the grocery bag down on the hood of Lily’s car.
“How much do you think you receive from Hale Foods?”
Lily swallowed.
“Nothing.”
Robert frowned.
“Nolan told me you stopped the distributions two years ago.”
Robert’s expression changed.
“I did no such thing.”
“He said you were angry because I left the company.”
“I was angry.”
That sounded like Robert.
“I still didn’t take your money.”
Nolan rubbed both hands over his face.
“They’re not her wages, Robert.”
“No. They’re distributions on shares her mother transferred to her fifteen years ago.”
Lily looked between them.
Her mother had died when Lily was twenty-three. The shares had never felt real. Robert managed the company. Accountants sent tax forms. Money appeared when tuition or a down payment was needed.
She had assumed Robert controlled all of it.
That assumption suddenly felt dangerous.
“Where does it go?”
Robert answered.
“The North Star joint account.”
Lily knew the name.
She and Nolan had opened that account four months after their wedding for household expenses. They had stopped using it—or Lily thought they had—when Nolan persuaded her that having accounts at separate banks made budgeting easier.
“I haven’t logged into that account in years.”
Robert looked at Nolan.
Nolan stared at the parking lot.
Lily took out her phone.
“Open it,” she said.
Nolan’s jaw tightened.
“I don’t have the password.”
Robert said, “Then we go to the bank.”
Nolan stepped toward Lily.
“Your father does not get to turn one argument in a grocery store into an audit of our marriage.”
Lily moved backward before he reached her.
It was a small movement.
But Nolan noticed.
So did Robert.
Lily opened the rear passenger door and took June’s diaper bag from the seat.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not going home with you tonight.”
Nolan’s face hardened.
“Because of formula?”
May you like
Lily looked at him.
“No. Because you knew the account was empty.”
