No Longer Anyone’s Accessory Chapter 30
On the steps outside the courthouse. I’d just come down off the last one when a figure came chasing after me.
“Corinne.”
Trevor.
He stood three steps behind me. His suit was rumpled, his eyes bloodshot.
“Corinne. Just a few words. One last time.”
I stopped and turned around.
“Thirty seconds.”
He drew a deep breath.
“I know nothing I say now changes anything. But I want you to know — I wasn’t always like this. Not at the beginning.”
“Is that right.”
“When we got married, I meant it. I really did. Then later, once I started moving the money over to my mom — she kept telling me, you can’t trust these California women —”
“Stop.”
I lifted a hand.
“You’re thirty years old. Your mom says something, and you just fall in line?”
“She’s my mom —”
“And I was your wife. The day my dad desperately needed surgery, she didn’t blink before dropping $120,000 on a European cruise. You didn’t hesitate for a single second. The day my dad lay there waiting on that money to save his life, you told me to go take out a high-interest loan.”
His lips trembled.
“That… that one I really screwed up.”
“No. You didn’t ‘screw up.’ You were rotten straight down to the root.”
Silence stretched out for several long seconds.
“Corinne. You’ve got money now. Millions. Next to what you have now, maybe all that old stuff doesn’t count for much anymore. But me — I’ve got nothing left. My job’s gone. My credit’s in the gutter. The IRS just froze my accounts over my mom’s tax fraud. The loan sharks — they said if I miss the next payment, they’re breaking my legs.”
“What do you want?”
“Could you — could you just lend me a little. Not a lot. A hundred thousand. Just enough to clear the most urgent debts.”
I looked at him.
This face.
Three years ago, I thought it was handsome. Two years ago, I thought it was unremarkable. A year ago, I thought it was repulsive.
Now it was simply, purely a stranger’s face.
“Trevor.”
“Yeah.”
“The court ordered you to pay me close to three million. That judgment can’t be wiped out through bankruptcy. The wage garnishment is permanent. And now you stand here asking me — to lend you a hundred thousand dollars?”
“I’ll pay you back —”
“With what? The tech industry blacklisted you. You still owe Kiara two hundred thousand. You owe the IRS a mountain. Add up the compensation, the fraud money, and the back taxes — what’s your total debt? Four million? Five million?”
He said nothing. He lowered his head.
“So you came here. To me — the woman you wrung completely dry over three years — to borrow money?”
“Corinne —”
“The answer is no. Not a single cent. Not ever.”
I turned and walked toward the car idling at the curb.
His voice drifted after me. Very soft. Like a man talking to himself.
“I had everything… and I couldn’t even be bothered to look at it.”
I didn’t glance back.
I got into the car.
The instant the door swung shut, the whole outside world was sealed off. Inside the car it was very quiet.
The driver asked, “Where to, ma’am?”
“SFO.”
