Robert did.
“You planned this,” he said.
“I protected myself.”
“From your husband?”
“From a man who believed I would never read what he signed.”
Marla tugged at Robert’s sleeve.
“We need to go.”
He pulled away from her.
For the first time, they looked less like lovers and more like two people realizing they had made different assumptions about the same money.
The temporary hearing was only the beginning.
During discovery, Margaret requested complete company records.
Robert resisted until the court ordered production.
Then the statements arrived.
They showed hotel charges, expensive dinners, and travel expenses connected to Marla.
Some had been paid from Robert’s personal credit cards.
Others had been pushed through company accounts under vague descriptions.
Each questionable expense had to be explained.
Robert called them business development.
Margaret asked him to identify the clients present.
He could not.
He claimed the trips were confidential.
The dates matched photographs Marla had sent him from private resorts.
He called the photographs irrelevant.
The judge disagreed.
A financial review was ordered.
Any personal spending charged to the company would be counted against Robert’s share of the marital estate.
The review did not destroy Richardson Holdings.
The employees kept working.
Contracts continued.
The company survived because it had never depended solely on Robert’s personality, despite what he had told everyone for years.
But Robert lost the freedom to treat it as his private wallet.
Every large withdrawal required documentation.
Every distribution was reported.
Every asset he had described as mine became ours long enough for the court to value it properly.
He hated the scrutiny more than he hated losing access to the bank accounts.
Three months into the case, his lawyer proposed a settlement.
Robert would let me remain in the house for two years.
I would receive a monthly allowance.
He would keep complete ownership of Richardson Holdings and regain access to a portion of the accounts.
The language was polished.
The insult was unchanged.
He was still offering me enough to survive.
Margaret slid the proposal across her desk.
“What do you think?” she asked.
I closed it without signing.
“I think Robert still believes he is deciding what happens to me.”
Margaret nodded.
“Then we continue.”
Robert’s next attempt was uglier.
At mediation, he sat across from me and said my health would not withstand a long case.
“You do not have the strength for this,” he said.
“Take the offer and enjoy whatever time you have left.”
The mediator looked down at the table.
Margaret did not.
“Was that intended as financial advice,” she asked, “or a threat based on Mrs.
Richardson’s medical condition?”
