Chapter 3 - WHY DAMON CALLED ME DISLOYAL
I did not go home after the hospital.
The no-contact order made that decision easier, but I would not have returned anyway. Dad took me to his townhouse, where a guest suite had already been prepared before I arrived.
“You expected this.”
“I expected you might need somewhere quiet.”
“You came back with a room ready.”
He looked guilty.
“I knew something was wrong with the sale. I didn’t know Damon would do that to you.”
Fair.
The next morning, Damon’s lawyer sent a message through counsel. Damon claimed I had secretly given Calder Family Capital internal Halstead financial information, damaging a confidential transaction and breaching my marital obligations.
Marital obligations.
Not fiduciary obligations.
Not employment duties.
I did not work for Damon.
I owned protected preferred interests because of my mother’s investment. That gave me specific information rights and approval rights. It did not make me his employee, and it certainly did not require me to sign whatever he wanted.
Naomi Price, the attorney Dad retained for me, read Damon’s letter twice.
“He is mixing marriage and corporate governance deliberately.”
“Why?”
“Because ‘my wife refused a transaction’ sounds less dramatic than ‘my wife betrayed me.’”
That word again.
Disloyal.
Naomi asked whether Damon had demanded anything else before the kennel incident.
I remembered the folder.
Three nights earlier, he had placed two documents on the dining table. One was the waterfront consent. The second was called a marital cooperation acknowledgment.
I had barely read the first page because the language annoyed me.
“What did it say?” Naomi asked.
“That disputes about Halstead business were private marital matters and I wouldn’t communicate with Calder Capital without Damon’s consent.”
Naomi stared.
“You have independent legal rights through Calder Capital.”
“I know.”
“So signing that could have been used to argue you voluntarily restricted your own communications.”
My stomach turned.
“I didn’t sign.”
“Where is it?”
“Home office.”
Maybe.
If Damon had not removed it.
Dad’s forensic accountants then found another problem. Halstead Urban Development’s internal board minutes stated that I had “verbally approved” the waterfront sale two weeks before the written consent.
I had not.
The minutes were prepared by Lacey.
She was not merely Damon’s mistress.
She was Halstead’s chief strategy officer.
That made everything worse.
Then Naomi asked the question I had avoided.
“When did the affair start?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you first suspect?”
I looked at my hands.
“Three weeks ago.”
Not because of lipstick.
Not because of a hotel receipt.
Because Damon had stopped pretending Lacey respected boundaries.
She began attending dinners at our house when I had not invited her. She answered Damon’s phone. Once, I walked into the bedroom and found her sitting on the edge of our bed reviewing documents with him. Damon told me I was being insecure.
Two days before the kennel incident, I found a silk scarf in my bathroom that was not mine.
He said Lacey had changed there after spilling coffee.
I wanted to believe him because I was eight months pregnant and exhausted.
Then Dad asked, “Raina, why didn’t you call me?”
“Because every time you dislike Damon, you look relieved.”
That hurt him.
Good.
He needed to hear it.
I continued, “I didn’t want my marriage to become another thing you got to say you were right about.”
Dad nodded slowly. “That’s fair.”
No defense.
Then Naomi’s phone rang.
She listened for thirty seconds before placing it down.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“Meridian North just filed a notice claiming your consent is valid.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“They say the signature was executed electronically in front of a corporate witness.”
“Who?”
Naomi’s expression hardened.
“Lacey Monroe.”
May you like
Now she was not simply benefiting from the transaction.
She was claiming she watched me approve it.
