Chapter 8: What Chloe Said When She Picked Up
She answered on the first ring.
Julian put her on speaker without asking anyone's permission, which told me he thought it would help him.
"Jules?
Is everything okay?
People are starting to arrive—"
"Chloe, I need you to come to room 318.
Right now."
A pause.
"What?
Why?
I'm not dressed yet—"
"It doesn't matter.
Come now."
Another pause, shorter.
"Okay."
He ended the call and looked at me with something that might have been triumph if it had more confidence behind it.
"She'll explain everything.
She'll tell you exactly what kind of person you're dealing with."
"I'm looking forward to it," I said.
We waited.
Dad straightened his jacket and sat with his hands on his knees.
Julian stood near the door.
I stayed at the window.
Four minutes later, a knock.
Julian opened the door.
Chloe was in a hotel robe, her hair half-pinned, a makeup brush still in her hand.
She was beautiful in the careless way of someone who had always been told so.
She stepped into the room and her eyes moved quickly — Julian, Dad, me, the contracts on the desk.
She was smart.
I could see her reading the room in under three seconds.
"What's going on?" she said.
Her voice was careful.
"Tell them," Julian said.
"Tell them about the documents.
About what she did."
Chloe looked at me.
"What documents?"
"The expense reports.
The transfers.
What I showed Dad."
Something moved behind her eyes.
Very small.
Very fast.
"Jules," she said, "maybe we should talk about this after—"
"There isn't an after," I said.
"The vendors are on hold.
There's no ceremony until I confirm.
So we have time."
Chloe turned to look at me fully.
The makeup brush was still in her hand.
She hadn't moved to set it down, which meant part of her was still calculating whether she could walk back out of this room and pretend it hadn't started.
"I don't know what she's told you," Chloe said to Dad, "but Julian was trying to protect the family.
He found records—"
"Where did he find them?" I said.
She blinked.
"Julian doesn't work at my company.
He's never had access to our systems.
He's never been in our offices.
So where did he find records of my transfers?"
Chloe's mouth opened.
"He told me he had a source," she said.
Then, immediately, she seemed to realize she had said the wrong thing.
"A source," I repeated.
"Inside my company."
"I don't know the details—"
"Or he made them," I said.
"Which is more likely, given that no such transfers exist."
"That's not—" She stopped.
Started again.
"You can't prove they don't exist."
"I can.
I'm the CFO.
I have access to every transaction record going back seven years.
There are no unauthorized transfers.
There is no personal account receiving redirected funds.
There is nothing." I picked up one of the vendor contracts from the desk and held it out toward her.
"What does exist is this.
My name.
My money.
Your wedding."
Chloe didn't take the contract.
"And there's a forty-thousand-dollar transfer," I continued, "from a joint account you opened with Julian three months ago, sent to a personal account on the same week those documents appeared in front of my father.
I'd like to know whose account that was."
The makeup brush finally went down.
She set it on the desk beside the contracts.
"Rachel," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"She came to me this morning."
Chloe's expression shifted into something colder and more honest than anything she had shown since entering the room.
"Rachel has always been jealous.
She's been trying to get between us since—"
"She wrote down what she heard.
Dated and signed." I reached into my bag and placed Rachel's statement on the desk beside the contracts.
"Six weeks ago.
Your house.
Julian said, *'Once the money clears, we don't need the dead weight anymore.'* And you said, *'He's already paid for everything.
What's he going to do about it?'"*
The room was completely still.
Julian's hand went to the back of his neck.
Chloe looked at the statement.
She did not pick it up.
"That's taken out of context," she said.
Her voice had gone flat.
"What's the context?"
She didn't answer.
Dad stood up from the bed.
He picked up his jacket from where it was laid out and put it on, slowly, one arm at a time.
He smoothed the lapels.
He picked up the wedding itinerary from the desk — *Father of the Groom — Escort bride's mother to seat, 3:45 PM* — and folded it once, precisely, and set it back down.
Then he picked up the six vendor contracts and handed them to me.
"These belong with you," he said.
Julian's voice cracked open.
"Dad—"
"I'm going to go find your mother," Dad said.
"And I'm going to tell her we're leaving."
"You can't—"
"The ballroom is downstairs.
Two hundred people are downstairs.
Chloe's family is downstairs." Dad buttoned his jacket.
"And not one dollar of what made today possible came from you."
He walked to the door.
He paused with his hand on the handle and looked back at Julian.
"You had a brother who paid for everything and asked for nothing," he said.
May you like
"And you called him a loser."
He opened the door and walked out.
