“He withdrew the money?”
Ahmed nodded.
A roar sounded in my ears, and I shook my head, trying to escape from the sound. It persisted, growing louder and louder. Tension gathered at my temples. I wished for a glass of water—my mouth was suddenly dry. I began reasoning with myself. There was a suitable explanation, I was sure of it. “Did he open a new account?”
“Not with us, no.”
“I don’t understand. I’d like my money.”
“There is none left in the account your uncle previously managed.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. I leaned forward, sure I had misheard. It sounded like he’d said that Whit had taken all of my money. Without speaking to me first. Without telling me his plans. That couldn’t be right.
I swayed in my seat. “But—”
“Are you well, madam? You’ve gone pale. May I fetch your companion?”
“There’s been a mistake,” I said, hardly recognizing the dry rasp of my voice.
Ahmed shook his head. “No mistake. He left not five minutes before you arrived, madam. He showed me the proper registration and license of your marriage, and he asked me to place a call to a bank in London, where your uncle ran your account.”
“So he moved—”
“He wired it to another bank in London.”
“Can I access it?”
“Not from our establishment,” Ahmed said gently. “You’d have to reach out to that particular bank in England.” He hesitated. “Or ask your husband.”
“There must be a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why my husband would move my money before I could access it for myself.”
The bank teller stared at me silently with a faintly pitying expression on his face. He didn’t have to speak in order for me to comprehend his thoughts. My husband was in control of my fortune, and at the first opportunity, he had wired it to a bank account I couldn’t access.
Without talking to me first.
“No,” I said faintly. “No.”
“It was all rather straightforward,” Ahmed said.
Anguish crept up my throat, tasting like acid. This couldn’t be. Whit wouldn’t betray me; he wouldn’t steal—
“Is there anything else you need from me?” Ahmed asked.
It would have been better for someone to have stabbed me in the gut.It would have hurt far less. I stood on shaking legs, my head swimming. I was strangely light-headed and nauseated, as if desperately ill.
Ahmed came around the desk, concern in his dark eyes. “Mrs. Hayes, are you all right?”
I licked my dry lips. “Don’t call me that.”
Somehow, I made it to the lobby, where Isadora immediately came to stand by my side. She seemed to know something had gone terribly, disastrously wrong. Later, I would call it sisterly intuition. But right then, I wouldn’t know my own name if someone asked me.
“I don’t understand what happened,” I said to her dumbly. My hands were shaking, my heartbeat thundering in my ears, the only noise I heard, the only thing I could hold on to that didn’t make me feel as if I were adrift.
“Inez, what is it?” she said, peering into my face. “You look like you’ve seen a phantom.”
Yes, it did feel like that. I would be haunted by this moment for the rest of my life.
“Please,” I said. “Let’s leave at once.”
