“Go away, Cal.”
He left her on the patio with feelings that flashed through her like rapid onset symptoms of an illness. They came on too fast to name: shock, disbelief, embarrassment, horror, anger, sorrow, humiliation. They made her shiver, they made her sweat and tremble and gag. He expected her to accept all this. To get along like a good girl. He expected her to forgive.
To believe he was in love with her and marry him.
He was everything he’d said his marks were—arrogant, entitled, proud, rich, too sure of himself ever to think someone could con him.
He’d given her a disease, and its name was revenge. And he’d given her the skill and all the tools she needed to execute it.
She tracked him to the bedroom. He lay on the bed but wasn’t sleeping. She sat, keeping her face away. “This is a shock.”
“How can I help?”
She shrugged and then accepted his arms around her, his lips to her temple.
“I need to see it again.” She turned to face him. “I need to see where the money goes. I couldn’t concentrate on it before. Can you show me?”
Together, they went into the other room. The red velvet box still sat on the side table. She made a point of looking at it. He’d expect her to. He picked up his laptop and logged in. He opened the banking site and coded in the long string of numbers and letters and magic spells he knew by heart to open the page he’d shown her earlier.
“Would you leave me with this?”
If he did, he was knowingly entrusting her with billions of dollars. He stroked her hair as he came to stand and handed her the laptop. “I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.”
Cal moved slowly through to the other room like he had a disease, as well. But there was nothing she could do for him. He’d brought the sickness on himself.
She studied the layout of the bank account page. There were a range of tabs, and it would take hours and financial genius she didn’t have to understand it fully, but what he said was correct. Loads of money funneled in from various sources and then back out again to a huge range of causes. There was a balance and it was impressively large, but she could never know if it was already allocated to doing good.
The next tab she opened was Cal’s personal account. There wasn’t much to it in terms of detail. A regular monthly deposit that looked suspiciously like an ordinary salary landing as it did on the same day each month and a single large deposit. It sat there bloated and ripe, ready to be plucked. She opened a new website, her own bank app, the one she’d set up for D4D, because she could be Robin Hood, too.
It took no time at all for the money in Cal’s account to transfer to hers. There was only the small problem of the need for a password to enable such a large transfer. But it was stupidly easy. Albatross.
It took a little longer to set up a new set of transfers from D4D to twenty-five of their project partners. But it took less than ten minutes to redistribute millions of dollars to where it would do the most good.
Cal could be proud; he’d taught her well.
“Come to bed, Fin. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
She shut down the apps and the laptop. “I’m coming.” She put it on the table beside the ring box and curiosity got the better of her. She opened it and had to jam her hand over her mouth. It was the most beautiful ring—simple, elegant, a vintage piece, filigree gold and a brilliant round white solitaire.
Some other con artist would eventually wear it.
In the bedroom, she lay on the bed still in her Bonnie clothing. “I don’t want to talk.”
“I’m sorry it had to be like this, my darling. I love you. I’m in love with you. I don’t want to go on without you and I’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
He opened his arms. She steeled herself not to show how it hurt to crawl into them, to put her head on his shoulder, her thigh over his legs, her hand on his lying, cheating, deceiving heart.
It took a long time for him to fall asleep. She might never sleep again. When he was out, she got up. She found the go-bag in the false bottom of a wardrobe in a guest bedroom. On the street, she hailed a cab, took it home, had the driver wait while she collected some things. Scungy watched, unamused at the early morning activity.
“I’m sorry, buddy, I have to leave for a while. Aunty Lenny will come take care of you. She won’t like it, so you have to be good or she’ll have you made into a hat.” Scungy tried to bite her when she cried into his fur. She knew how he felt.
The cab took her to the airport. From the backseat, she booked a flight, the first suitable one, and sent Lenny a text.
Dumped Cal. Bastard. Can’t stop crying. Have to get out of town. Please take care of Scungy. Owe you one. Will call when my plane lands.
It was five in the morning; she didn’t expect a response. And when Cal called she hung up on him, right before she threw her phone under the wheel of the cab and heard the satisfying crack it made as it shattered like everything she thought she knew.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nec sinitur quiescere te homini honesto. You can’t cheat an honest man. It was the Sherwood motto, written in Latin to lend it an air of ancient wisdom. It was emblazed behind their reception desk in shiny, laser etched letters.
It was the truth, and Cal had been living a lie. He wasn’t an honest man, and he’d brought the deception down on himself when that should’ve been impossible.
Fin had done it. It wasn’t an accident or a slip up. She’d deliberately conned him. She’d let him believe she was hurt, distressed, and confused, when she’d been ready to enact her revenge. She’d accepted his arms around her, when she’d been softening him up to shove a dagger in his chest.
He’d been too arrogant, too willfully blind and stupidly devoted to see it coming.
He was a chump, a rube, an egg, a sucker.
He was the worst kind of mark there was—a lovesick fool.
It was early still when he moved through reception to his office. The rest of the family would start arriving soon, and he was a coward; he didn’t want to have to explain the early morning emergency meeting a dozen times over as they all staggered in.
He’d made the same mistake with Fin as he’d made with Rory, compounded a billion times. This time, his lies of omission and overconfidence had cost him everything.
It was a gut punch. It had him doubled over with remorse and disbelief; he felt numb and unbalanced. He’d been wrong about Fin, and he was never wrong about people. She didn’t trust him. She didn’t love him. And he’d put his whole family in danger for not understanding that.
He could trace the money, he could have the transactions reversed, and he could track her down from wherever she’d run to, but the truth was he deserved everything she’d plated up for him.
When it was time, when he knew his family would be in the boardroom, he closed his office door for the last time and joined them. There was one mistake he could correct.
Dad was the first person he saw, his chair parked at the end of the table opposite where Cal normally sat. “What is this about?”
He didn’t take his seat. This would only take a moment. “I told Fin the truth about us. I told her how we make our money and how we spend it. I intended to ask her to marry me.”
“He has great-grandma Amelia Archer’s ring,” said Mom. He shushed her with a glance.
“Fin was upset, confused, which was to be expected. What I didn’t expect was for her to clean my bank account out and run.”
“What?” said Zeke, loud enough that Sherin jumped and Tresna swore.
He held a hand up to prevent further interruptions, and the buzz in the room went silent. “It’s my fault. I allowed Fin access to my accounts, and she took advantage of it. I thought she trusted me. I thought she was in love with me, and that she would come to forgive my duplicity and see that what we do has its own justice. I was prepared to give this up for her. I was wrong. I don’t know how far back her con game started, but it finishes
now. My resignation is effective immediately.”
Zeke shot to his feet. “No. You can track the money.”
“Sit down, Zeke. The money isn’t the important thing. I was conned. I’m not fit to head the firm. I let an untrustworthy outsider have information and access that could’ve pulled us all down. It’s a lucky break Fin only wanted to punish me.”
Zeke thumped a hand on the table, but he had no words.
“I hate being right about this when I was wrong about Fin.” His stomach rioted, and his head thumped. “I have loved being at the head of this company, even when it felt like too much work, even when you gave me a hard time and our commitments were an albatross around my neck. I’ve always believed in what we do, and why we do it, but my bad judgment in this, my arrogance, put us all in danger. I’ve acted like a mark, and that’s not something I can forgive myself for, nor should you. I can’t lead you anymore without further abusing your faith in me.”
“You’re being hasty,” said Zeke. “It only looks bad now because it’s fresh.”
“Fin will regret it and make amends,” said Rory.
It had taken Rory six months to do that. “Fin doesn’t get the same consideration you got,” he said. “She’s not family.” Never would be.
“We should sleep on this,” said Halsey, but Cal could see he was torn between what was right and what was family.
“There’s nothing more to think about. I’ve violated the privilege of being CEO of Sherwood. I’m stepping down and handing over to Zeke.”
Still standing, Zeke looked at Dad. “Put a stop to this.”
Cal had known this would be a shock, but it was the only way to square things with the people he loved the most. “Am I not within my rights to quit?”
“You are,” said Dad. “I wish this was different.”
“All those in favor of Cal quitting,” said Mom.
“It’s not open to a vote,” he said, as every hand stayed down. “I appreciate your loyalty, but it’s a decision I’m entitled to make, and I’ve made it.” He looked at Zeke. “As next in line, Sherwood is yours.”
Zeke braced both hands on the table. “I don’t want this.”
“What will you do?” asked Sherin. Goddamn, Cal had to turn away, her face glistened with tears. He’d not slept, he couldn’t look at food, but whiskey was his new best friend. The friend that hung on long after they should’ve known you were bad together and going to get into serious trouble.
But there wasn’t much more trouble he could get into once he separated from the family. He’d sell up: art, furniture, stocks. Meanwhile, he barely had enough scratch to buy a burger without credit, but he wasn’t destitute, except in the way that mattered most. He no longer knew how he was supposed to navigate in the world when he was the one being fooled, or how he was supposed to feel about Fin when all he could do was ache for her.
He’d gotten it all so wrong. He’d known it was dangerous to soften, to let himself fall in love with her, but he’d done it anyway, and it had wrecked her to know the truth of them was built on deception.
He’d been careless and heartless, mistaking Fin’s joy for boundless acceptance and her new confidence for unshakeable resolve. Then he’d made her feel humiliated, insecure, and threatened as he traded truth for a promise of forever—gilt and diamond for stark reality—and that dishonor, more than anything, seared him bloody.
“Might be time to look at getting a regular job.”
Saying that was blasphemy, and he should’ve been more careful. The room erupted. He held both hands up, palms out to quiet them. “I need to take some time to figure how I got it so wrong.”
“You didn’t get it wrong, Cal. Fin is a bi—”
“Don’t complete that sentence, Tresna. I used Fin. She found a way to use me back. She’s tipped the money into her own charity. She didn’t keep a cent for herself. She did to me everything I taught her that we do to others. I don’t see how I can complain about that. I was wrong to challenge the outsiders rule. When you don’t come from this world, it’s impossible to understand how it works. It’s like being born into a different religion or a different skin, and I’m asking you now to be tolerant of that for me and for Fin.”
While they digested that, he moved to the center of the table where Mom sat and put Grandma Amelia’s ring in front of her. She snatched his arm. “You’re not to spend too long looking for answers, Cal. Everyone is a fool for love.”
The next week he was a fool every time he took a breath because that’s how often he missed Fin, worried about her. Since she wouldn’t answer his messages, he went to see Lenny. Castration would’ve been more enjoyable.
“Wow. I don’t even know what to say to you,” Lenny said, when he showed at the pokey D4D office, “with the exception of get out and don’t ever come back.”
That told him Fin had been in contact, and Lenny knew the truth. “Every dollar that Fin raised for D4D is legit. Even what she took from me. It’s yours. No one is coming for you. You’re not on anyone’s watch list now or ever. You’re free and clear.” And he’d have Halsey make sure the accounting was bulletproof.
“Like I can believe anything you say. You’re just another liar who ruins people’s lives.”
Sometimes the breath stealing ache inside him broke through. He had to lean on the wall to stay upright. “I didn’t mean to hurt Fin. That was the farthest thing from my mind, but I understand why she took the money, and I’ll forever regret I pushed her to it.”
Lenny frowned at him. “I don’t get you.”
“What’s to get? I lied to Fin, betrayed her trust, and she took her revenge.” He shrugged. “I deserved it.”
“You still love her.”
Ah, yes. It was all over him, and he couldn’t not show it. “Guess that makes me a bigger loser.”
“Yeah”—Lenny pointed to the door—“it sure does.”
Without a job to go to, without an agenda for the day, and dodging family calls, he found himself on the street retracing his steps with Fin. He wondered about Scungy. He didn’t even like the mangy bag of fur.
He wandered past the burger bar and didn’t go in because it was their place. And he stood and watched three men run a shell game outside the theater that was playing The Rocky Horror Picture Show until the cops moved them on.
The thing about a shell game played on the street was that it was structured the same way as any con. It lured susceptible players and taught them to believe in something that wasn’t real.
Find the right mark and you could hook them hard enough that you transferred the contents of their wallet to yours. When they were skint and broken down, they still believed it was bad luck, the kind anyone could have.
The thing about Cal post-Fin was he didn’t know if he could still run a con, pick the right mark from all the faces available, give them confidence to master a game rigged against them, and send them away determined to come back and try again. And if he couldn’t do that, then he wasn’t sure how he was going to live. The only legitimate skill he had was sales, and if he couldn’t run a shell game, then he couldn’t sell an overpriced pretzel, let alone a dodgy painting or a newly made dinosaur bone.
When you were born and bred a con, you could see it everywhere: detoxes were scientifically useless; most advice about diet and exercise was flawed; women’s cosmetics made ludicrous claims; the nutritional values of orange juice and milk were inflated; ghostwriters were a deception. There were drugs prescribed for people who didn’t need them; research from respected institutions was selective. The close-door button in an elevator was phony, so was the thermostat in most hotels, only there to give the illusion of control, and it was getting harder to tell fake news from real events. Don’t even start on politicians who bent the truth, sometimes fracturing it entirely to grab power, or the leaders of countries who were self-serving, malevolent corruptions.
But Cal hadn’t seen Fin’s con in the making, and he didn’t know when she’d decided to make him her
mark. Was it when she’d first kissed him on that barstool, or when he’d rejected her advances, or after he’d taught her how to read expressions and noodle? Did she resent his own wealth? Did he make her feel small? Did he teach her how to despise him? Or was it simply that she wasn’t in love with him and took the opportunity to win when it was presented.
He didn’t know which scenario he preferred best, the short con or the long. Both made him question his very existence.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Everything about Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, was a balm to Fin’s sliced up pride and mashed heart. The thick heat, the unfamiliar smells, the mix of shopping malls and desert, donkey carts and Hummers. It was her first time travelling out of the United States, and everything was new and surprising, and it was almost possible to forget what she’d done.
Conned the con artist. Stolen from the thief. Dumped the emotional cheat. Won at the unwinnable shell game.
Once she met with the D4D Aid for Africa project partner, it was entirely possible to forgive herself for being no better than Cal. The large injection of cash would make an enormous difference immediately.
She toured the project offices, met the hardworking staff, and was introduced to dozens of enterprising women who were benefiting from D4D loans. They were awe inspiring. It was a privilege to hear their stories and take pleasure from their success. They were a reason to find a way to keep fundraising big dollars without Cal.
In no hurry to move on, not ready to face Lenny or her family, she spent time helping out in a free school and medical clinic. She cleaned cuts and scratches and read stories and felt guilty for crying herself to sleep at night, especially when she learned the clinic and the school were funded by Sherwood.
She’d done the right thing. She’d played Cal Sherwood at his own game with his own rules, and if he was surprised to find himself momentarily broke and alone, then he’d underestimated her, after all.
One Night Wife Page 24
