Chapter 4: The Second Phone
Elena did not sleep that night.
She sat in the kitchen of her own house — the house her father had helped her buy before she ever met Julian — and she listened to the sounds of her husband moving through the rooms above her.
A drawer opening.
Footsteps crossing the landing.
The shower running at two in the morning.
She made tea she didn't drink and thought about the second phone.
She had found it seven weeks ago.
It had slipped from the pocket of his gym bag onto the bathroom tiles.
She'd picked it up without thinking, seen the screen light with a name she didn't recognize — just initials, R.M.
— and set it back down without a word.
She had not confronted him.
She had called her father instead.
Her father had said: "Don't touch anything.
Don't ask him anything.
Let me make some calls."
Four months, he'd said tonight.
He had been ready for four months.
Elena wrapped both hands around the cold mug and thought about what that meant — that her father had been quietly building a case while she was still making Julian's dinners and asking him how his day had been.
Her phone lit up on the table.
A message from a number she didn't know.
*You should ask your husband who R.M.
is.
And you should ask him why she has a key to the Ashworth property in Dorset.*
Elena stared at the message.
Then she typed back: *Who is this?*
Three dots appeared.
Then: *Someone who worked for Victoria for six years and wasn't paid what she was owed.
I have records.
If you're building a case, I want to help.*
Elena set the phone down.
Picked it up again.
*Send me what you have,* she typed.
By three in the morning, her inbox contained forty-seven photographs, two audio recordings, and a spreadsheet of payments made from the Ashworth family account to a woman named Rachel Morrow — payments that had continued, without interruption, for the past two years.
Elena opened the first audio recording.
Victoria's voice came through the speaker, clear and unhurried.
*"Julian needs to keep Elena calm until the transfer clears.
After that, it doesn't matter what she knows.
She'll have no legal standing."*
A pause.
Then a second voice — younger, careful.
*"And if she finds out before then?"*
Victoria: *"She won't.
Julian will handle it."*
Elena closed the recording.
She sat very still for a moment.
Then she forwarded everything to her father's solicitor with a single line: *There's more.
I'm sending it now.*
She was still sitting at the kitchen table when Julian came downstairs at half past seven, dressed for the office, acting as though the previous evening had been nothing more than a difficult dinner.
He stopped when he saw her face.
"You didn't sleep," he said.
"No."
He moved toward the coffee machine.
"Elena, I know last night was—"
"Who is Rachel Morrow?"
The coffee machine kept running.
Julian did not turn around.
"Julian."
He turned.
His expression was careful.
Practiced.
"She's a property consultant.
She works with my mother on development projects."
"She has a key to the Dorset property."
A beat.
"That's a business arrangement."
"There are two years of payments to her personal account from your family fund." Elena set her phone on the table, screen up, the spreadsheet visible.
"That's not a business arrangement.
That's something else."
Julian looked at the phone.
Then at his wife.
And for just a moment — one unguarded, unscripted moment — Elena saw it.
Not guilt.
Not fear.
Something worse.
Relief.
As though a decision he had been postponing had finally been made for him.
"I think," he said quietly, "we should talk to our lawyers before we say anything else."
"I think," Elena said, "that's the first honest thing you've said to me in a year."
May you like
She stood up, picked up her phone, and walked out of the kitchen.
Behind her, she heard him reach for the second phone.
