Chapter 6: What He Did Before Thursday
Marcus called my office on Tuesday morning.
Not my cell.
My office line.
The one listed on the firm's internal directory.
My assistant, Paula, put her head around the door with the particular expression she reserved for things she found professionally inappropriate.
"A Marcus Hale on line two.
He says it's personal.
I told him this wasn't a personal line."
"It isn't," I said.
"Tell him I'll call him from my cell when I have a moment."
"He said he'd hold."
"He can hold as long as he likes."
I finished the analysis I was working on.
Forty minutes later, I picked up my cell and called him back.
"You called my office," I said.
"You weren't answering my messages."
"I needed time to think.
That's not an invitation to call my workplace."
"Valeria, Thursday is in two days.
We need to talk before then."
"We talked Sunday night."
"That wasn't a conversation.
You made a decision and hung up."
"I made a decision and said good night.
There's a difference."
He was quiet for a moment.
When he spoke again, his voice had shifted into something that was working hard to sound reasonable.
"I want to explain the Richard thing.
It wasn't what you think."
"Then explain it."
"I wasn't researching your family for money.
I was — I found out your father's name meant something in finance circles and I felt embarrassed that I hadn't known.
I asked Richard because I didn't want to seem ignorant in front of your family."
It was a good explanation.
Plausible.
Delivered with just enough vulnerability.
"Marcus," I said.
"If that were true, you would have told me.
You would have said — I looked into your father's work, I had no idea how significant he was, I felt a little out of my depth.
That's a conversation a person has with someone they trust."
Silence.
"You didn't tell me because you didn't want me to know you knew.
Those are two very different things."
"You're twisting—"
"I'm not.
I'm describing what happened."
Another pause.
Then his voice hardened slightly.
"My mother called me after she spoke to you.
She said you were very cold."
"I was honest."
"She's trying to help, Valeria.
She's not the villain you've decided she is."
"I haven't decided anything about your mother.
I've listened to what she said and I've drawn conclusions from that."
"She's from a different generation.
She has different ideas about marriage."
"Her ideas about marriage would have left me with no financial autonomy, no equal claim to shared property, and a permanent obligation to rank your family above mine.
I don't care what generation that comes from."
"So that's it." His voice went flat.
"You're done."
"I'm not signing on Thursday."
"Because of one conversation at a dinner table."
"Because of everything that conversation revealed."
A long silence.
Then: "My mother was right about one thing.
You were never really committed to this.
You were always looking for a reason to leave."
I let that sit for a moment.
"Goodbye, Marcus."
I ended the call.
Paula appeared in the doorway again almost immediately.
"Everything okay?"
"Fine," I said.
"Can you block that number from the office line going forward?"
"Already done," she said, and closed the door.
I thought that was the end of it.
I was wrong.
That afternoon, my firm's managing partner, a man named Gerald Foss who had known my father for fifteen years, stopped by my desk.
He looked uncomfortable in the particular way of someone delivering information they wish they didn't have.
"Valeria.
I received a call this morning.
From a Marcus Hale."
I went very still.
"He introduced himself as your fiancé.
He said he was concerned about your emotional state and wanted to flag that you might be — his word — distracted in the coming weeks."
The room was very quiet.
"He called my managing partner," I said.
"He did." Gerald's expression said everything his professional tone would not.
"I told him that your performance was not a matter I could discuss with a third party and ended the call.
I wanted you to know it happened."
"Thank you, Gerald."
He nodded and left.
I sat at my desk for a long moment.
Then I picked up my phone and called my father.
"Marcus called my managing partner," I said.
"To suggest I might be emotionally compromised."
A pause.
"When?"
"This morning."
"Before or after you spoke with him today?"
"Before."
My father was quiet for three full seconds.
That was unusual for him.
"All right," he said.
"I'd like you to call an attorney today.
Not to file anything.
Just to have a conversation and understand your options."
"I'm not legally married, Dad.
There's nothing to file."
"No.
But if he's willing to contact your employer, I want you to know exactly where you stand and what protections are available to you."
I hadn't thought of it that way.
I wrote down the name he gave me.
What neither of us knew yet was that Marcus had made one more call that morning.
Not to my office.
Not to my father.
May you like
To someone who knew things about our relationship that I had never told anyone at work.
Someone who was supposed to be my friend.
