My Husband Used College Girls to Steal My Company

For the next two days, Alina and I barely slept. We stayed holed up in Claire’s downtown office, surrounded by paper coffee cups and open laptops.

Claire traced the offshore accounts while Alina and I searched names online. We ran every single one of the twenty-six wire transfer recipients through university directories and social media.

The results made my stomach turn.

Nearly all of them were young women in their early twenties. Most were graduate students at NYU or Columbia. We found LinkedIn profiles where several listed brief internships or "special consulting contracts" with Matthews & Associates. Then, the trail went cold. They stopped posting. Some dropped out of their degree programs entirely.

It was a chilling, repetitive formula. Kolson offered them consulting jobs, hooked them with rent money and wire transfers, and then silence swallowed them whole.

"This isn't just cheating, Jolie," Alina said, rubbing her tired eyes. "This is a trap. He targets girls who need money, buys their trust, and pulls them in."

I looked down at my father’s watch on my wrist. The second hand ticked forward, steady and cold. I gripped my pen and wrote down every name in my father's leather notebook. I was building a cage for Kolson, one page at a time.

Then, on Friday morning, the front door buzzer rang.

A delivery guy handed me a vase with two dozen deep red roses. I pulled out the small white envelope tucked inside the stems.

*To the only girl I’ve ever loved. Remember the rain at NYU? Let me make this right. — K.*

My breath hitched. That was our first date. It had poured rain outside Washington Square Park, and we had shared a broken umbrella.

At three in the afternoon, the front door clicked open. Sophie burst in, her cheeks flushed pink from the winter chill.

"Mommy!" she squealed, dropping her backpack. "Look! Daddy picked me up from school! We went to Central Park and ate mint chocolate chip ice cream!"

Kolson walked in behind her. He wore his heavy woolen coat, carrying a brown grocery bag under his arm. He hadn't picked Sophie up from school in over a year. He always claimed he was too busy with board meetings.

Now, he knelt down, helped Sophie unbutton her coat, and kissed her forehead with gentle care.

"Go wash your hands for dinner, sweetie," he said softly.

Sophie giggled and ran down the hall.

Kolson stood up and looked at me. His face had none of the icy cruelness from two nights ago. His gray eyes looked soft, bruised with exhaustion and regret.

"I bought groceries," he murmured, lifting the paper bag. "I’m making dinner."

He walked into the kitchen, rolled up his sleeves, and began cooking. The scent of sizzling pancetta, garlic, and cracked black pepper soon filled the air.

He was making spaghetti carbonara.

He even pulled out the old blue ceramic bowl from the high cabinet. It was chipped on the rim—the very same bowl he used in his tiny college apartment when we were twenty. Back then, he worked two jobs and still cooked for me after midnight.

Sophie sat at the dining table, her eyes beaming at her father as he set down the steaming plates.

"Jolie," Kolson said, his voice quiet and thick with emotion. He reached across the table and lightly touched the back of my hand. "I was an idiot on Wednesday. The firm has been running me ragged. The stress got to me, and I took it out on you. I said horrible things. Things I didn't mean."

He swallowed hard, looking straight into my eyes.

"I don't care about the board. I don't care about the money. I only care about you and our daughter. I want us to start over." He smiled a tentative, hopeful smile. "I booked a table at that boutique hotel in Midtown for tomorrow night. Just the two of us. An early anniversary dinner. Please come. Let me show you I can still be the man you fell in love with."

Across the table, Sophie smiled, her chin covered in sauce.

I looked at Kolson. I watched his hands, steady and warm. For one agonizing, terrible second, the ice in my chest melted. I saw the penniless boy who once held my hand in the rain. A sharp ache pierced my ribs, and I hated myself for it. I hated that part of me still remembered how good it felt to love him.

"I'll think about it," I said quietly.

Later that evening, Alina came over while Kolson was in the shower. I showed her the roses and told her about the dinner.

Alina stared at me like I had lost my mind.

"Are you insane?" she hissed, grabbing my arm. "Two days ago, he threatened to strip you of your father's firm and take Sophie away! Now he brings flowers and pasta, and you're considering going to a hotel with him?"

"I need to know what he's planning," I argued, keeping my voice down. "If he thinks I'm softening, his guard will drop. It's intelligence gathering, Alina. I have to play along."

"This isn't a man having a change of heart, Jolie," Alina said flatly. Her face was dead serious. "This is a man buying time. Don't go."

We glared at each other under the dim hallway light.

I told myself it was strategy. I told myself I was being smart and cautious. But deep inside, where the dark cold lived, the ghost of our ten years whispered to me. A tiny, foolish piece of my heart still wished the nightmare wasn't real. It wanted the boy from NYU back.

"I'm going," I said firmly. "I have to."