Griffin: Would you believe me if I said he did?
Me: No, because my brother has never referred to me as 'cute'. Nice try. Still going to kick Kyle's ass.
Griffin: I’m walking into a meeting. Send me accounts, phone numbers, and addresses you want me to look into. I’ll call you tonight.
Me: Okay.
“Soooo….” Lily bumped her shoulder against mine. “What did he say?”
“He wants me to get a list together of things for him to look into. We should check the home office for secret account numbers or phones…” I grimaced. “I’m not sure I’m ready to find out just how much he’s been hiding. Knowing that he had a secret property in Vegas was hard enough.”
“You are strong enough to do this. Think about it this way, the more you find… the easier it will be to get that divorce.” Lily was always trying to look on the bright side of things. It served her well in her line of work, where she was always comforting frantic brides or being a human shield against critical mothers.
“Alright.” I groaned and trudged my way to his home office.
Ben kept things very neat and organized. He didn’t like clutter, and he didn’t like it when his things were moved. I knew that he would be able to tell if I moved anything out of place, but for once, I didn’t care about his ‘system’. Lily checked the bookcases for anything tucked between books or any ‘secret passageways’ my overly imaginative friend claimed. I methodically emptied every drawer in his desk and then looked through his filing cabinet.
He was clever. I had to give him that.
At first glance, it looked like there wasn’t anything to find. Which was because he was very good at putting nondescript labels on folders. When I looked a little closer, I realized that he had slipped his own financials into folders labeled as clients. It looked like my husband had been too humble when he was telling me how much money he’d earned the past two years.
How cute.
Then there was his investment portfolio. The man owned shares in several very successful companies and a few that were trending towards success.
“Look at all of this.” I muttered to Lily and handed her some of the sheets. “I can’t believe he risked getting caught… because of the infidelity clause all of this becomes marital assets…”
“What an idiot.” Lily scoffed, “I thought he was dumb just for losing the best woman he’d ever find… but to go to all the effort of hiding this stuff from you and then get caught cheating.” She shook her head with an exasperated expression on her face.
I hummed to acknowledge her words, but I was too busy reading the file full of NDA’s that was in my hand.
Bianca, Marabelle, Celine, Jenna, Kara, Hannah, Penny, Cindy, Jillian, Dinah, Azaleah, Sharee…
Who the hell are these women, and why did they all sign NDA’s?
Oh my god.
It hit me like a ton of bricks.
“That fucker made his affair partners sign NDA’s” I screeched. Lily looked up from the paper she was reading with wide eyes.
“What?”
“There are twelve women in this folder who have all signed NDA’s… he doesn’t do anything for work that would require this much confidentiality from this many women… he has them sign fucking NDA’s before he fucks them.” I was visibly shaking. “My name is on all of these as someone they agree to never speak to.”
“Holy shit…” Lily gasped. “This is a scary level of organized for wanting to sleep around.”
“Why marry me if he just wanted to sleep around… why not get separated?! All he needed to do to not be held to the infidelity clause… was legally separate from me.” I could feel the tears building. “I don’t understand why he would do this.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t think there’s going to be a logical explanation for this.” Lily wrapped her arms around me.
“I need to take pictures of everything.” I took a deep, shaky breath. “We need the evidence but if I keep the actual files, he will know that I know.”
Together, we quickly took pictures of everything and then tried to carefully put it all back where it belonged. I was hoping Griffin could help me narrow down which accounts were Ben’s and which belonged to clients. Next, I opened the safe in the room. I wasn’t surprised that there wasn’t anything incriminating in there, as I had always had the code, but I needed to check anyway. Then I sat down to look through his computer.
Unfortunately, we heard his car pull into the driveway before I had even typed in the password. Lily and I exchanged nervous looks and hurried to the living room. Just a few minutes sooner, and he would’ve caught us red-handed.
“What is he doing here?” Lily hissed as we sat down on the couch and tried to look like we had been there for a while.
