FRAUD: A Romantic Suspense Novel

by R. C. Stephens

  “Fuck, you’re right,” I hissed, hating to hear those truthful words. Natalia so much as told me she could never be a cheat because of her own parents. I only wanted what was best for her.

  “You have a good night,” Shay said, sounding as defeated as I felt.

  “You too, mate.” I closed the call. I went in to say good bye to Lauren. Tomorrow I’d break up with her or maybe give her reason to break up with me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Summer 2010

  “Lily, can you please get your shoes on? We need to go to the mall,” I said in that motherly tone that sometimes irked me.

  “I hate the mall,” she protested.

  “I hate the mall too,” Liam chimed in.

  “I suppose you hate summer camp too, because we are heading out to get you things for camp.” My brows drew together as I leaned down to look both my children in the eyes.

  Lily rolled her eyes at me. She was full of sass. “Fine.” Liam followed whatever she did.

  “We’re meeting Immy, Lewis, Althea, and April at the mall too.” I raised my brows, hoping that information would reel them in and make them happy. I barely saw Immy these last couple years between work and my failing marriage. Mark never liked to hang out with Immy and Shay. He seemed to get his wish more and more. Shay was moving up in the IT world and Mark was just getting by. They traveled on fancy vacations, and we were happy to have enough food in the fridge.

  We drove to the mall in my old Civic. I was surprised and grateful when my mother offered to chip in to send the kids to camp. Maybe it was her way of making up for not spending time with her grandchildren. I’d given up my job working in the lab since the long hours proved too challenging. I had begun to get panic attacks from all the stress. That’s when I called my father and asked for a job. I was desperate. We needed the money, and I knew the hours would be more lenient. He offered me a job right away and now I was his vet assistant. I looked into blue eyes every morning that were so similar to mine and saw his disappointment, and truth was, his disappointment in me was mirrored by my own regrets. It’s eerie how life sometimes just happens to you. I never saw myself staying in a shitty marriage. I was like any other kid on my block growing up and dreaming of living with her prince charming, making lots of kids since I always wanted a large family. As a kid, you didn’t think you wouldn’t have enough money to pay the bills or buy the food you want to buy. And then we turned into adults and told ourselves we wouldn’t get stuck in a rut, and yet there I was: living it, breathing it, and in no way owning up to the fact that my husband wasn’t a good man.

  Immy was already waiting for us in front of the Cheesecake Factory when I walked up with the kids. “Hey you.” She leaned in and gave me a peck on the cheek. “You look tired.” She frowned.

  She was dressed to the nines in a fancy sundress and designer shoes. I was in a pair of old jeans, a frumpy T-shirt and a well-worn pair of Birkenstocks.

  “I’m exhausted,” I admitted.

  “You know if you need to talk, I’m here,” Immy said, and I read between the lines. I thought I was doing a good job of covering up all my problems, but I apparently wasn’t as good of an actress as I thought. My lips thinned and a quiver ran through my body.

  The kids were walking in front of us, holding hands in a long row, and Immy was pushing April, her new baby, in a stroller.

  “Whatever it is, spill it,” she insisted. After twenty-four years of friendship she read me well.

  “You know Mark is in LA visiting family for a couple weeks . . .” I began.

  “I know, hon. Sorry, I want to have you and the kids over for dinner this weekend. I’ve been crazy busy, but I thought I’d mention it today,” she said, worrying her lower lip.

  “Don’t worry about that.” I waved her off. “The kids and I are good. I mean I’m used to Mark not being around. It doesn’t feel any different except the usual tension when he’s around isn’t there. It’s kind of relaxing.” I admitted out loud for the first time that my marriage wasn’t perfect. It didn’t feel as terrible as I envisioned it would. I was also at my breaking point.

  “What are you saying? I mean I thought you and Mark may be having trouble . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  I laughed sadly. “We’ve been having trouble since he went back to LA when his mom had the double mastectomy. At first I thought he returned in a pissy mood because she was sick and had been through a lot, but that wasn’t the case. His mom is doing well, but Mark hasn’t come out of his stupor whatever caused it. He’s my husband, the father of my children. I’m doing my best to keep our family together . . . I don’t know . . . it’s like he’s done a one eighty on me, and I can’t figure out why.” My frustration built as I tried to piece together pieces of the puzzle that were missing. Only it was my life I couldn’t figure out.

  “He’s so damn irritable I can’t even begin to address our issues . . . I-I . . .” I stammered, unable to get my next words out. I fingered the necklace around my neck. It had been a first anniversary present from Mark. A Tiffany heart. Touching it reminded me of our first anniversary when life had been simple. We’d gone to a fancy restaurant in South Beach. After dinner we walked along the beach and made out under the stars. Mark pulled out the robin-egg- blue box and placed the necklace around my neck. He promised to love me forever. We kissed and went back to the hotel he’d reserved for the night. It was one of those ultra posh South Beach hotels on the beach. We made mad passionate love all night. It was unforgettable. Now those thoughts were a distant memory. I tried to trace my steps back and discover where we possibly went wrong. I didn’t know. The only thing I could pinpoint was that damn trip to LA five years ago. Mark’s mother’s cancer hit him hard even though her prognosis had been good. I didn’t think there had been anything else that was life altering.

  “For crying out loud. What is it? You’re scaring me. What were you going to say?” Immy pulled me from my thoughts and I blinked twice.

  “Sorry.”

  She paused. “Kids, stop walking,” she called out. I shook myself out of my stupor, feeling really out of it today.

  Lowering my voice, I looked around the busy mall. “Since Mark’s been away I’ve been collecting the mail,” I explained to Immy. “He usually took care of the mail and bills.” Immy listened to me intently. “I’ve received two credit card bills with a combined balance of ninety-three thousand.”

  “Dollars?” Immy gasped her suction of breath not even close to my reaction when I opened the envelopes. I thought my heart would stop.

  “What is on the bills?” she asked, palming her heart.

  “All kinds of business expenses, some restaurants . . .” My voice trailed off. I felt numb.

  “Can he afford to pay that kind of bill? I mean credit card interest rates are ludicrous.” Her eyes were wide in shock.

  “He can’t afford to pay it. As it is we have line of credit debt and a second mortgage on the house. We are so behind.”

  On some level it felt good to say those words out loud after hiding my situation for so long, but I was also lightheaded like the wind would blow and I would float away. What was I going to do? Over the years I’d learned Mark was okay to live in debt. His parents had always lived with a lot of debt, and he felt like it was manageable. I, on the other hand, was having panic attacks.

  “Maybe I can talk to Shay—”

  My eyes widened. I cut her off. “Don’t even think about it. Mark isn’t the best with money. When I was pregnant with Liam something similar happened, and we took a second mortgage out on the house to pay it off. I can’t believe he would do it again, considering how deep we already are.” I was the first to admit that the first few years when we came back to Florida we lived above our means: nice car, nice home, and all the works. I quickly learned our lifestyle wasn’t sustainable; Mark hadn’t seemed to learn.

  “I hate to say it but maybe ask one of your parents.” She winced. Immy and I grew up together; she knew how my parents felt a
bout Mark.

  “They won’t help out. They’ve never had faith in Mark. I can’t tell them they were right.” My eyes began to swell. I bit back tears, not wanting to cry in the mall.

  “Did you call him on it?” she asked.

  “Not yet. I mean, he’s away. What am I supposed to say? He left me with no money in the bank,” I admitted, knowing I put the final nail in Mark’s coffin where Immy was concerned. After all the years I’d been silent, this week was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Mark didn’t like me sharing our financial situation with my friends, and I respected his privacy, until now. I suddenly didn’t care what he thought.

  “That is seriously messed up. Shit! I’m sorry, Natalia.” She sighed. “I didn’t know things were so bad. I mean . . . you’ve shut down over the years and pulled away. I know Mark doesn’t like us or any of our friends very much.” She bit her lip. “I hate that he’s kept you away. I hate that he isn’t close with Shay and we haven’t been spending a lot of time together.” Tears pooled in Immy’s eyes. “What can I do? Tell me, because I want to help you, but I don’t know how.”

  “Letting me open up is a huge help. You have no idea how it feels to always keep secrets. My head is always spinning, and I shut down because I have no other choice . . . I’ve given up so much, Immy. I don’t see my best friends, I didn’t become a vet, I’m poor. I gave up everything for him, and he doesn’t give a shit.” I bit back my tears. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t want a divorce. I just don’t know how I failed so bad at life.” I shook my head, my insides felt hollow, I was desperate.

  “You’re an amazing mom. You’re attentive and caring, you’re nothing like your mom.” Her words really hit home because she knew what Mom was like when we were growing up. She was never around. Mark knew it too, he knew that providing my children with a loving stable home was the most important thing to me. It was also something he used against me. When he first came home with his overloaded credit card, I had been pregnant with Liam. I had a panic attack. Later Mark rubbed it in my face that I was unstable like my mother. Deep down I knew better, but his words held weight and they hurt.

  “Thanks. You don’t know how much I needed to hear that.” I swallowed hard. I couldn’t fall apart in the mall.

  “I’ve been a bad friend. I can see that now. I just . . .” She shook her head. “You know once we married there was this privacy issue couples suddenly maintain, and I thought I was giving you privacy. I’m sorry. I should’ve been there for you.”

  “There was no way you could’ve known. Mark doesn’t want me sharing our problems with anyone. He likes to go about acting as if everything is okay. He wears these fancy clothes even though we have no money. Meanwhile look at me, I’m unrecognizable.” I waved over the old clothes I was wearing. “Every extra cent I have goes to buying things for the kids.” I looked over my clothes. Dressing well was important to him but less so to me.

  “You’re perfect,” Immy said, pulling me from my thoughts.

  I huffed.

  “You are, Natalia. You’re a natural beauty. It doesn’t matter what you wear, but that’s not our concern now. How are you going to get by? You have two kids to feed.” She told me what I already knew, hence the onset of a panic attack.

  “We may have to sell the house. Mark’s really stubborn about keeping it.” I shook my head. “It’s actually crazy because he grew up in a family of nine that lived in an apartment, and I grew up in a big empty house, but he’s the one holding on to the materialistic things. I would have thought it would be the other way around.”

  Immy bit her lip. “You need to talk to him. You need to call him out on his shit. He can’t keep getting away with digging you deeper in debt.”

  At this point I didn’t know how to tell my best friend that I was scared of calling Mark out on anything. He angered easily and went for days ignoring me when he was angry, causing a silent tension in our home whenever he was there. The kids also picked up on his foul moods. It felt like a never-ending circle of negativity. Everything I did and said was wrong, and still I did my best to prevent his anger.

  “I’ve checked Mark’s social media page while he’s been away. He has pictures of himself with a bunch of guys doing different things, hiking, at a bar, at the fucking beach, which he presumably only visited once a year. He’s living it up while my life is falling apart.”

  Immy let out a loud hiss. “That is so fucking messed up. I didn’t realize he was that irresponsible.”

  “I don’t think I completely understood it until I saw a pattern developing with him. I’ll wait until he gets back, and I’ll have to force him to take action. His damn store is bleeding us dry. He likes having it because it makes him feel like a big man, but I’m done feeding his damn ego.”

  “That’s right. You take a stand.” Immy nodded.

  We finished our shopping and parted ways. A burden lifted after sharing that part of my life with my best friend. I had to find a solution to our problem, or we would lose our house.

  Late at night with my kids tucked into bed, I decided to go through Mark’s files. Maybe that way I’d understand how all the debt was piling up and could put a stop to it. He kept his files in the drawers by his bedside. He wasn’t very organized, that much I knew. I opened the drawer to a file that said July 2005. A credit card bill sat at the top of the file. I used my finger to scroll down the expenses: gas, a ticket for six hundred dollars with United. I remembered he flew to LA that year. It had been the year of his mother’s surgery. I saw that he paid for the car park at the airport. There was nothing that really stood out. I sifted through more papers in the file and saw the car park receipt. I don’t know why it caught my attention, but I read the details on the receipt. Mark had picked up his car on the 25th of July. That wasn’t something I would normally care about or remember, only I do because at the time he told me he stayed in LA an extra two days. This receipt tells me that wasn’t the case. He was in Florida. Why didn’t he come home? My heart began to beat fast as my mind conjured up all kinds of crazy ideas as to why my husband would lie. I began pacing the room before sitting back down. If he was hiding things, I needed answers and this was the perfect time for me to find out, since he was at the other end of the country.

  After hours of sifting through files, most of them out of order, I learned that Mark had been to South Beach many times without me. To bars, restaurants, night clubs. Learning this about my husband felt like a betrayal, yet nothing really stood out to me except for the large cash advancements he took on his credit card. It was the middle of the night when I finally tucked the files back into their place. Hopefully they were exactly how he’d left them. A part of me wanted to call him and blast him with a million questions. I couldn’t do that though. I would have to be face to face with him for this. I had to read his facial expressions to know if he was lying.

  Unable to sleep, I sauntered to the kitchen and made myself a herbal tea. My laptop sat open on the kitchen table and I glanced at it. Over the years I had thought about writing a book for the sole reason of getting my thoughts out of my head. Mark didn’t want me sharing our problems, but I could write them down. Maybe that would help me work through a solution. Maybe my heroine could have the same issues, and I could find a way of applying them to my own life. My husband’s secrets were many, and my theories were worthy. As I began to type, it felt cathartic, but I also began to worry that maybe I would never know the true Mark. I was torn between standing up for myself and preserving what I could of our family. It was important for my children to have a stable home. A mom and dad to depend on. My brother Matt’s death had really driven that home. When my eyes grew heavy, I took the lap top to bed and continued to type. For my first time writing, I was surprised with how much I had to say. Maybe my heroine would get her happily ever after. I knew I wasn’t getting mine.

  Over the next two weeks while was Mark out of town, I typed every night into the early hours of dawn. After my day job and the nightly rout
ine with my kids, it wasn’t sleep I craved, it was writing.

  Mark returned from his trip one morning after I left for work. My blood was boiling that day as I anticipated the conversation I’d waited two weeks to have. I had it all planned out in my head. With the kids finally asleep, I found Mark in the kitchen. He was standing by the kettle, boiling water for tea. I pulled the most recent credit bills out of the kitchen cabinet and placed them in front of him on our kitchen table. I was too worked up to even speak. He gazed at the bills for a few seconds, his jaw pulsing. Obviously, he wasn’t shocked.

  He finally looked at me. “What do you want me to say?” he asked, but those were the wrong words. I wanted an explanation, something I could wrap my head around.

  “Are you serious?” I huffed. “How did this happen? I want an explanation.” I stood in front of him, my hands on each of my hips and stared him down. I’d never been that forward with him, I never demanded answers to things I wanted to know, but this was it. I had been too naïve, too trusting, and that was about to end.

  His hand swiped over his mouth, and he picked up the bill as if he was studying it. “Things have been tight. I purchased merchandise for the store with this credit card, and I’m not making enough to pay things off,” he said, and that seemed reasonable.

  “Okay, but this must have been going on a long time. You don’t just accumulate a hundred grand of debt overnight,” I said, stirring my tea. I had to keep calm or else we would fight, and I would get nowhere. I took my tea and sat across from him at our kitchen table.

  He remained silent. “Mark. Look at me,” I urged. He’d pulled away from me so long ago and when I tried to work through our problems he couldn’t look me in the eye. “What’s going on?” I placed my hand over his to console him and get him to open up.

  “Things are really messed up, Nat. I’m going to have to close the store. I know that.” He paused.