Chapter 11: The Family Takes Sides
The message was waiting for Phoebe when she reached Selina’s house.
Not on a phone this time. Printed on white paper and placed in the middle of the dining table, as if Selina had called the family together for a board meeting instead of a fight.
Phoebe stopped just inside the room. Rowan stood beside her, his hand hovering near her back but not touching. She had left Leo with Gideon, who had promised to keep the baby warm and the door locked. The promise had helped. The gray coat Gideon wore when he arrived at the hospital was draped over a chair at home, but Phoebe had thought of it all the way here.
Selina rose from her seat. Around the table, Rowan’s relatives watched Phoebe with the strained, cautious expressions of people who had already heard one version of the story.
“You came,” Selina said.
“You sent a message about me to the family.”
“I sent the truth.”
Phoebe moved closer to the paper. It began, I understood Cedar Bridge was making temporary advances to help Selina’s business. I approved the arrangement. I don’t want this twisted into something it isn’t.
The words sat there with a confidence Phoebe had never given them.
Her cousin-in-law Marla was near the window, arms folded. She met Phoebe’s eyes but didn’t offer a reassuring smile. A few seats away, Rowan’s uncle stared at the tabletop.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” Selina said, “coming into my home with Gideon Sterling behind you and accusing me of taking your money.”
Phoebe looked up. “My father isn’t here.”
“He doesn’t have to be. Everyone knows what he can do.”
There it was: the fortune, dragged into the room like a weapon. Phoebe felt the old instinct to explain herself, to make sure no one mistook her for someone who had come to buy the last word.
She let the instinct pass.
“I’m asking about this message,” she said. “Who edited it?”
Selina’s mouth tightened. “It’s your language.”
“Some of it.”
“You admit that?”
Phoebe leaned over the page. One phrase snagged in her memory: I can cover the gap until we see the numbers. She had written that to Rowan months earlier, during a discussion about household expenses—not Selina’s company, not Cedar Bridge. A conversation about a bill and whether they should wait until his next paycheck to move money between their own accounts.
Phoebe looked at Rowan.
He had gone still.
“That phrase came from a private conversation with my husband about our household budget,” she said. “It was not permission to send joint money to Cedar Bridge. Who copied it into this?”
The room shifted. Someone’s chair creaked.
Selina gave a short, brittle laugh. “I didn’t copy anything. You said you’d cover the gap.”
“For our household. Show them the whole conversation.”
“I don’t have to show anyone your private messages.”
“Then don’t present a piece of one as proof I approved a business payment.”
Selina’s eyes flashed. “You’re changing the subject because you know how bad this looks.”
“No,” Phoebe said. “I’m asking why a sentence about our bills is being used to make it sound like I approved something I never saw.”
Aunt Denise, seated nearest the end of the table, glanced from the page to Rowan. “Is that true?”
Rowan looked as if he wanted to disappear. Then he pulled out a chair but didn’t sit.
“I approved two payments,” he said. “I told you I thought they were temporary help for Mom’s business. I didn’t verify what Cedar Bridge had done. I let Mom ask me to keep it from Phoebe, and I did.”
Selina stared at him.
The admission seemed to land harder than Phoebe’s accusation. A fork slipped from someone’s hand and clinked against a plate.
Rowan swallowed. “Phoebe never authorized the invoice. I saw a payment go directly to Mom, too, and chose not to ask enough questions. That was my choice. It wasn’t Phoebe’s.”
“Rowan,” Selina whispered.
He kept his eyes on the table. “I can’t say she approved it. She didn’t.”
His uncle pushed his chair back. “You let Phoebe take the blame for something you knew you’d done?”
“I didn’t know everything she’s found out,” Rowan said. “I should have looked. I didn’t.”
“That’s convenient,” Selina snapped. Her voice cracked on the last word. She pressed a napkin to her eyes, though no tears had fallen. “After everything I’ve done for you, you’re choosing a stranger over your own mother.”
Phoebe felt Rowan flinch beside her.
“I’m not asking anyone to choose me,” she said.
Selina lowered the napkin. “Of course you are. You walked in with your father’s money behind you, and now you want everyone to believe you.”
“I came because you told the family I approved payments I never approved. I’m not asking them to like me. I’m asking you not to use my words to make a lie sound true.”
“Your words,” Selina said, shaking her head. “Your money. Your rules.”
“No,” Rowan said. He lifted his gaze to his mother. “My decisions. My responsibility.”
Selina’s face crumpled, but her eyes stayed sharp. “You’re choosing her.”
Rowan didn’t look at Phoebe for permission. He didn’t ask her to soothe the room or soften what he’d said.
“I’m telling the truth,” he replied.
Marla’s arms loosened at her sides. Across the table, Aunt Denise looked at Selina with a troubled frown, while Rowan’s uncle kept his gaze fixed on Rowan. No one rushed to comfort Phoebe. No one rushed to comfort Selina, either. The family had split into smaller silences.
Phoebe could feel the argument trying to pull her into its center, demanding she prove that she deserved to be believed.
She wouldn’t beg.
Her phone buzzed against her palm.
The message was from Tessa.
Selina knows about the duplicate ledger. She’s coming to take it.
Phoebe read it once, then turned the screen toward Rowan.
May you like
His expression emptied of color.
Across the table, Selina was still watching them. For the first time since Phoebe had walked in, her tears stopped.
