Chapter 13: The Truth in the Room
Selina’s threat hung between them, heavier than the rain.
Rowan looked at his mother’s reaching hand. Then he turned his palm away.
“I won’t lie for you again.”
Selina’s mouth tightened. “You’ve already done enough.”
“Yes,” he said. “I have.”
The answer seemed to unsettle her more than an argument would have. She searched his face for the son who would rush to soften the blow, who would take her fear and carry it for her. Rowan didn’t step forward.
Phoebe shifted the ledger against her ribs. Its damp cover pressed cold through her coat. Tessa stood under the awning, shoulders hunched, while rain ticked against the metal edge above them.
“You said you wanted to keep all of us from being destroyed,” Phoebe said. “Then tell the truth about what you did.”
Selina’s eyes cut to her. “You’ve got your records. What more do you want?”
“For the record to mean what it says.”
Phoebe set the ledger on a dry corner of the reception desk just inside the office. She kept one hand on it. Rowan came in behind her, water dripping from his sleeves. Selina followed last, as though entering the room were an act of surrender she meant to deny.
Tessa stayed near the doorway.
Phoebe opened the ledger to the pages she had already studied. Dates, amounts, brief descriptions. The entries didn’t need her to explain them. The empty spaces where real consulting work should have been said enough.
“Cedar Bridge billed for services it didn’t perform,” Phoebe said. “Tessa, tell him what you did.”
Tessa swallowed. Rowan looked at her, not accusing, not absolving.
“I helped set up the company paperwork,” Tessa said. “I kept the books. I made the invoices look like regular consulting charges, even though I never saw consulting happen.”
Selina gave a sharp, humorless laugh. “You’re making yourself sound like a victim.”
“I’m not,” Tessa said. Her voice trembled, but she held Selina’s gaze. “I attached Phoebe’s signature when you told me to. I knew it wasn’t hers.”
Phoebe felt Rowan’s attention move to her. She didn’t look back. She had spent too long being asked to make other people’s choices easier to bear.
Tessa pressed her fingers together. “You told me she had approved it. You told me you had a copy from something else and that all I had to do was attach it.”
“And you did,” Selina said.
“Yes,” Tessa answered. “I did.”
The plainness of it hit harder than a plea. Tessa didn’t reach for forgiveness. Phoebe respected that more than she wanted to.
Rowan stared at the ledger. “You knew the work wasn’t real.”
“I knew the descriptions weren’t true,” Tessa said. “I knew what you and your mother called it wasn’t consulting.”
Selina turned to Rowan. “You approved the payments.”
“I did.”
“So don’t stand there as if I dragged you into this.”
“I’m not.” Rowan’s voice cracked, then steadied. “I approved two payments. I let you call them temporary help. I didn’t check the invoices, and I kept them from Phoebe because you asked me to.”
“You trusted me.”
“I did. And I used that trust as an excuse not to look.”
Phoebe watched him take the blame without trying to make it smaller. It wasn’t repair. It wasn’t even a beginning she could promise to welcome. But it was different from the old familiar maneuver: an apology offered like a key he expected would open the door.
Rowan looked at Selina.
“I didn’t approve Phoebe’s signature. I didn’t know you were using her name. That part was yours.”
The color in Selina’s cheeks rose. “You’re happy to draw a line now.”
“No. I should’ve drawn it before.”
For a moment, the office held nothing but the rattle of rain on the windows. Phoebe’s eyes stung, and she blinked it away. She wasn’t grieving the mother-in-law she’d hoped Selina might become. She was grieving how often she’d mistaken being included for being safe.
Selina looked down at the open ledger. Her expression had gone still, almost weary.
“The business was failing,” she said.
No one answered.
“I had deposits due. Vendors calling. The birthday event was supposed to bring in enough to cover the next month.” Her jaw worked. “I thought I could put the money back before anyone noticed.”
“You used our joint account,” Phoebe said.
“I used money Rowan said I could borrow.”
“I didn’t say you could take it without telling me,” Rowan said.
Selina rounded on him. “You said you’d help.”
“I said I’d help with the payments I approved. I didn’t say you could use Phoebe’s name.”
“You’re splitting this into neat little pieces because you can’t stand the whole of it.”
“No,” Phoebe said. “We’re naming who did what.”
Selina’s eyes flashed toward the ledger. “You think naming it changes anything?”
“It changes who gets blamed.”
That landed. Selina looked away first.
Phoebe’s phone was still in her hand. She opened the saved message Rowan had sent from the hospital’s fluorescent-lit afternoon: Mom loved the watch. Coming home Monday. Don’t start another fight.
The words looked smaller on the screen than they had that day. Still, they cut.
“You sent this while I was home with our newborn,” Phoebe said. “You made it sound like the watch was just a gift and my anger was the problem.”
Rowan read the message. His shoulders sank.
“I know.”
For once, he didn’t ask her to understand why he’d sent it. He didn’t say he’d been caught between them. He let the words belong to him.
Selina stared at the phone, and something in her expression broke—not into remorse, Phoebe couldn’t tell, but into exhaustion.
“The watch was paid for through Cedar Bridge,” she said.
Rowan went rigid.
Selina kept her eyes on the screen. “The money went through the company account and paid the jeweler. I told myself it was a business expense I could cover later.”
Phoebe’s grip tightened around the phone. The birthday dinner. The watch. Rowan’s text, sent while she was learning to breathe through contractions without him.
May you like
Now the message wasn’t merely proof he had chosen his mother’s celebration over his son’s birth.
It was part of the money trail.
