Chapter 4: The Woman on North Michigan Avenue
Darcy's car was waiting at the curb.
I got in.
She pulled away before I had my seatbelt fastened.
"You held up well in there," she said.
"I practiced."
"I could tell." She glanced at me at the first red light.
"How are you actually doing?"
"Ask me in a week."
She nodded and didn't push.
That was one of the things I had always loved about Darcy.
She knew the difference between the question that needed an answer and the question that just needed to be asked.
We drove in silence for a few blocks.
Then my phone buzzed.
Julian's name on the screen.
I declined it.
It buzzed again thirty seconds later.
Then a third time.
"He's going to keep calling," Darcy said.
"I know."
"You don't have to answer."
"I know that too."
On the fourth call I picked up.
Not because I wanted to hear his voice.
Because I wanted him to hear mine.
"Sloan, listen to me." He was somewhere quieter now, away from the apartment.
His voice had the compressed, urgent quality of a man speaking through clenched teeth.
"Whatever Darcy has told you, whatever those documents look like, there is an explanation.
Petra and I — it's complicated.
It was never what you think."
"Four hundred and twelve thousand dollars," I said.
"Three years of rent.
A child."
"I was going to tell you—"
"When, Julian?
When were you going to tell me?"
Silence.
"That's what I thought," I said.
"Sloan, if you go public with this — if you let Darcy use those documents in court — I will lose everything.
My reputation, my career, everything.
Is that what you want?
To destroy me?"
"I want what you took from me," I said.
"Every dollar.
Every year.
And I want my name off that mortgage so I never have to think about you or your mother again."
"You're not being reasonable—"
"I'm being precise," I said.
"There's a difference."
I ended the call.
Darcy was quiet for a moment.
"He's going to try something," she said.
"Men like Julian don't accept losing gracefully.
He'll look for leverage."
"I know."
"Is there anything he could use?
Anything you haven't told me?"
I thought about it.
Five years of a life lived carefully, quietly, under constant judgment.
Five years of being watched and found wanting by two people who were spending my money while they did it.
"No," I said.
"There's nothing."
Darcy nodded slowly.
"Then we're in a strong position.
But Sloan — I need you to be prepared.
He's going to come at you from a direction you're not expecting.
That's what they do when the frontal approach fails."
We pulled up outside my office building.
I had booked a conference room for the afternoon — a place to think, to breathe, to begin the process of untangling five years of shared finances.
I was halfway out of the car when Darcy said, "One more thing."
I looked back.
"Petra Voss called my office this morning," Darcy said.
"Before the filing.
She said she has information about Julian that she wants to share.
She asked specifically to speak with you."
I stood on the pavement for a moment.
"What kind of information?"
"She wouldn't say on the phone." Darcy's expression was careful, measured.
"But she sounded frightened, Sloan.
Not angry.
Frightened."
I looked up at the glass face of my office building.
May you like
The morning light was flat and cold against it.
"Set up the meeting," I said.
