Chapter 14: What Accountability Costs
For a moment, the office held only the hum of the overhead lights.
Then Selina drew a breath and looked at Phoebe.
“I’ll sell the business.”
Tessa’s gaze lifted from the ledger. Rowan didn’t move.
Selina pressed her fingers to the edge of the desk. “The equipment, the client list, whatever the business is worth. The proceeds can go toward paying it back.”
“Toward paying all of it back,” Phoebe said.
“If the sale covers all of it.”
“Then the agreement says what happens if it doesn’t.”
Selina’s mouth tightened. “You want me to sign something that makes me sound like a criminal.”
“I want you to sign what happened.”
The old instinct—to soften the truth so Selina could bear to hear it—rose in Phoebe and stopped there. She had spent too many years translating other people’s choices into kinder words.
Rowan moved beside the desk. “The payments I approved are mine to answer for. I’ll repay my share from my own money.”
Selina turned on him. “You can’t afford to take on all this.”
“I’m not asking you to decide what I can afford.”
His voice was quiet, but he didn’t look away. Phoebe watched him take the rebuke without reaching for an excuse.
She set her phone beside the ledger. “The remaining funds stay protected. The restrictions stay in place. Nothing moves without a written record and both account holders’ verification.”
Selina glanced at the phone. “You’re going to keep treating me like I’ll steal from you.”
“I’m going to treat the money like it needs protection.”
A flicker crossed Selina’s face. Anger, then hurt—both real, neither an answer.
Tessa slid a folder onto the desk. “These are the source records I still have. The invoice files, the messages about attaching Phoebe’s signature, and my own notes about the payments.”
Phoebe looked at her. “And your statement?”
“I’ll put in writing what I did and what Selina told me to do.” Tessa’s hands curled around the folder’s edge. “I won’t pretend I didn’t know the invoices were false.”
Selina gave a bitter laugh. “So now everyone gets to save themselves by handing over paper.”
“No,” Phoebe said. “You all get to choose what you do now. The paper just keeps those choices from being rewritten later.”
Tessa lowered her eyes. She had helped make the lie look ordinary; Phoebe wouldn’t mistake cooperation for innocence. But Tessa’s records mattered, and so did her willingness to name her part.
Selina looked from the folder to the ledger. “I’ll sign the repayment agreement. The sale proceeds go toward the balance. We document the schedule once the records are reconciled.”
“And if the business doesn’t sell?” Rowan asked.
“I’ll find another way to pay.”
Phoebe met Selina’s gaze. “If you break the agreement, I’ll pursue formal remedies. I’m not agreeing to keep this quiet in exchange for promises.”
Selina flinched at the word quiet.
“You’re my daughter-in-law,” she said.
“I was your family when I was in labor, too.”
The words came out without force. That was what made them land. Selina’s eyes dropped to the desk, and Rowan shut his eyes briefly, as if there were no version of the truth he could make less painful.
Phoebe gathered the records, keeping the ledger separate from the unsigned agreement. They would review every figure against Tessa’s files before anyone signed. No rush, no handshake in place of a record, no declaration that a promise had already made them whole.
On the drive home, Rowan sat beside her without trying to fill the silence.
When they reached the house, Gideon opened the door. He wore the same old gray coat he had worn to the hospital, though he’d taken it off inside and draped it over a chair. From the living room came Leo’s small, indignant cry.
Phoebe’s body answered before her thoughts did. She went to him.
Gideon had settled the baby in the bassinet, one hand resting near Leo’s blanket. He glanced at Phoebe, then Rowan, asking no question aloud.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” he said, and left them space.
Rowan stayed by the doorway.
Phoebe lifted Leo. His warm cheek pressed against her collarbone; his fingers opened and closed against the fabric of her shirt. For a few breaths, there was only the soft rasp of his cry fading into a hiccup.
Rowan looked at his son with a tenderness that hurt to witness.
“I’m not asking you to come back,” he said. “I know you’ve chosen to separate.”
Phoebe held Leo closer. “We’ll need to work out a schedule. In writing. And I need you to show up when you say you will—not just when you’re afraid you’re losing something.”
“I understand.”
“Understanding isn’t the same as doing it.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
He did not ask her to comfort him. He did not reach for the baby.
After a moment, he looked at Leo, then back at Phoebe.
“May I hold him?”
His hands remained at his sides.
May you like
The question did not undo the empty place beside her in the hospital. It did not erase the message on her phone or the money he had chosen not to question. But this time, Rowan had asked.
And he waited.
