Regrets Of What Was Lost Chapter 18
Then she hung up.
I took a breath, snapped a photo of the complaint, and sent it to Alex.
“How do I keep Zinnia and Chloe out of this?”
Alex replied quickly.
“What hard evidence does she have?”
I thought about it.
“Probably none. To keep Zinnia from finding out, Savannah and I almost never left a paper trail.”
“What about money transfers? How much, roughly?”
“Yes. Over three hundred thousand.”
“Email me the records. If she wants to win this case, she first has to admit to the nature of her relationship with you. But once she admits she knowingly got involved with a married man, she’s no longer an innocent, deceived homebuyer. At that point, Zinnia can countersue her for unjust enrichment and recover the three hundred thousand.”
“So you’re saying—”
“No matter what she does, it’ll be very hard for her to walk away clean.”
But while I was preparing my defense, Savannah made her move.
She anonymously sent records of all the money I’d transferred to her over the years, along with every scrap of related evidence, to the company’s compliance department and the board’s audit committee.
An entire folder.
Scanned documents, bank screenshots, transfer records.
She had even added notes, highlighting where every payment went.
From my account, to a friend’s account, to the account she used to buy the house.
I was stunned.
She knew she might not win the lawsuit, so she was taking me down with her.
Very quickly, I was suspended pending an internal investigation.
There were no explicit chat logs between us, but the money funneled through friends’ accounts, the padded expense reports, and the advanced payments had all, indeed, ended up in Savannah’s account.
At the same time, Zinnia sued both me and Savannah.
In the divorce proceedings, she asked the court to rule that the money and gifts I had transferred to Savannah were an improper transfer of marital assets and should be clawed back.
But Savannah was already drowning under a massive mortgage and had no money left.
In the end, it all came out of my accounts.
The moment the funds from the house sale hit my account, the bank’s six-hundred-thousand-dollar mortgage was paid off. The remaining balance was frozen by the court before it had even settled.
The money in my other accounts was uncovered, piece by piece, then frozen and seized.
The proceeds from the sale, the frozen assets, and the clawed-back funds added up to just enough to pay Zinnia her share and cover the remainder of Chloe’s child support.
Savannah soon fell behind on the mortgage.
Her credit was destroyed, and the bank foreclosed on the house and auctioned it off.
The company eventually issued a formal notice.
Disciplinary action. Removal from position. Termination.
No reputable company would hire me after that.
In the end, all I could do was drive for Uber.
I leave every day at four-thirty in the morning and don’t stop until eleven at night.
I often dream about those ten years of my marriage.
And when I wake up, the thing I crave most is still that plate of tomato pasta.
Once, while waiting at a red light, a car stopped beside me.
The rear window rolled halfway down, and a little girl leaned against it, looking out at the city.
I recognized her at once.
It was Chloe.
She’d gotten a little taller. She was wearing a backpack, her hair in two braids.
The light turned green.
The car pulled away quickly, its taillights merging into traffic until they disappeared.
That was the last time I ever saw her.
My mother told me to find a way to win Zinnia back.
I just laughed.
Do I deserve her?
No.
Their life is better without me.