Chapter 9: The Part Rowan Knew
By the time Phoebe got home, the afternoon light had gone flat and gray against the windows. Leo slept in his bassinet, one fist tucked beneath his chin. Gideon stood nearby in his old coat, keeping watch as if the whole world might try to take the baby from the room.
Rowan was at the table. He looked up when Phoebe set the ledger down.
His eyes went to the pages, then to the photographs on her phone.
“What did you find?”
“An email from your mother.”
Phoebe turned the screen toward him. Rowan leaned closer. His face changed before he finished reading—not with surprise at the copied signature, but at the address above the message.
“That’s hers,” he said. “Her private email.”
“You recognize it?”
“I’ve seen it for years.”
He sat back. A chair leg scraped the floor, loud in the quiet room.
Phoebe studied him. “You knew this was her?”
“I didn’t know she sent that.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Rowan pressed his palms to his eyes. When he lowered them, he looked older than he had that morning.
“Yes,” he said. “I knew the address.”
Gideon stayed beside the bassinet, but Phoebe felt his attention sharpen. She didn’t need him to speak for her. She needed Rowan to stop choosing the easiest version of the truth.
“Then tell me what you knew,” she said.
Rowan stared at the ledger. “I saw a payment go directly to Mom.”
Not through Cedar Bridge. Not an invoice he’d glanced past. A payment with her name on it.
Phoebe waited.
“She told me it was temporary,” he said. “That she was covering a business expense and would put the money back. I accepted that.”
“You didn’t ask what expense?”
“No.”
“You didn’t check whether she repaid it?”
“No.”
The answers came quietly, but Phoebe heard how carefully he had chosen not to soften them.
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want to know there was a problem.” His gaze lifted to hers. “If I asked questions, I’d have to admit she was asking too much. And I’d have to tell you I’d let it happen.”
Phoebe felt Leo’s tiny breath stir the blanket. She kept her voice even.
“You’re saying you knew about this payment and chose not to look closer.”
“Yes.”
“Even after you knew she wanted the other payments kept from me?”
Rowan’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”
Gideon’s hand rested on the edge of the bassinet. He didn’t interrupt.
Rowan glanced at the email again. “I didn’t know she copied your signature. I didn’t know she planned to blame you.”
Phoebe’s stomach pulled tight, but she didn’t let the distinction become an escape route.
“You didn’t know those things,” she said. “You did know enough to stop asking questions.”
“I did.”
For a moment, the only sound was the soft rush of the heating vent. Then Rowan looked toward Leo, and the shame in his expression seemed to frighten him more than Phoebe’s anger.
“I keep thinking if I admit how much I ignored, there won’t be anything left to save.”
“That’s not something I can answer for you.”
“I know.”
He looked down at his hands. “I’m not asking you to make it easier.”
Phoebe believed he meant it. That didn’t make the hurt smaller. It made the room feel more dangerous: no easy lie to reject, no quick apology she could refuse and be done with.
Gideon moved away from the bassinet and faced her.
“Tell me what you need. I can fund whatever response you want. I can make sure she never gets close enough to do this again.”
The offer landed between them with the weight of a door swinging open—wide, polished, and built to let money rush through first.
Phoebe looked at her father. In the hospital, he had arrived in an old gray coat and stayed through the night without asking her to be anyone but his daughter. She didn’t want his fortune to become another voice deciding what she should do.
“I don’t want you to make this disappear,” she said.
“I didn’t say—”
“I know. But I need your help preserving what we have. Keeping copies safe. Making sure nothing that belongs to Leo can be used to frighten me into silence.”
Gideon’s expression softened. “I can do that.”
“Then do that. Don’t turn this into a contest of who can spend more.”
He nodded once. “All right.”
The restraint in his answer warmed something in her chest. Phoebe had spent years keeping their distance because she feared his money would fill every space between them. Now he was listening to where she drew the line.
Rowan’s phone vibrated on the table.
He looked at the screen. The color drained from his face.
“Selina?” Phoebe asked.
He didn’t answer right away. His thumb hovered over the message, then lowered.
“She’s asking me to meet her.”
“Where?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Does she want you to go alone?”
Rowan swallowed. “Yes.”
He turned the phone so Phoebe could read the message.
Come alone. If you don’t, I’ll tell the family Phoebe stole from me.
The room seemed to contract around the words. Phoebe glanced at Leo’s sleeping face, then back at the screen. She could almost hear the story Selina would tell: tidy, outraged, and prepared to leave Phoebe defending herself to people who had never seen the ledger.
Rowan’s hand curled around the phone.
“She wants me to go alone,” he said.
Phoebe met his eyes. “And if you don’t?”
May you like
He looked at the message again.
“She says she’ll tell them you stole from her.”
