The prime commercial building — the one he had been trying to save himself with — was drafted to transfer not into his name, and not into any joint company, but directly and solely into his mother’s private trust.

“You swore to me,” Christopher said, and his voice cracked down the middle, “that Rosalie’s properties would go into our joint holding company!

My name isn’t anywhere on these pages!”

“Of course it isn’t, Christopher,” Beatrice said, coldly, and did not even look at him.

And for one strange, fleeting moment, I almost pitied my husband.

Because I understood, watching his face, that Beatrice had not merely been helping her son take my money.