Chapter 2
The room began to empty, but no one seemed to know where to look. My new nameplate sat squarely in front of me; beyond it, the glass wall reflected a woman in a navy dress with a dark green stain across her chest.
Marisol closed the red folder. “We have fifteen minutes before the next meeting. I suggest we use them.”
Julian stayed standing. He’d smoothed his expression into the one he wore for investors: calm, reasonable, a little tired. It had once comforted me. Now I wondered how many times I’d mistaken it for honesty.
“Claire,” he said, “we should keep the elevator incident out of the minutes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a personnel matter, not a company matter. People are already watching us. We don’t need to give them a spectacle.”
I looked at the employees lingering near the glass. One of them had seen Chloe block me. Another had seen the drink hit my dress. They were still watching, though they pretended not to.
“Then it shouldn’t be hard to record what happened accurately.”
Julian’s jaw moved once. “You know how quickly a story like this can hurt the company.”
“I know how quickly silence can teach people who they’re expected to protect.”
His eyes flicked toward Chloe. She stood beside the door, her fingers resting over the watch. When she noticed me looking, she lowered her hand.
Marisol pulled out the chair beside mine but didn’t sit. “Before we discuss procedures, I want to know whether everyone here can participate without making this personal.”
The words might have sounded neutral to anyone who hadn’t just watched my husband let his secretary lie about me. I wondered whether Marisol meant to give us a chance to be adults or to find out which of us would blink.
I turned to Julian. “Did you buy that watch for your mother?”
He glanced at Chloe’s wrist. “I bought a watch in Geneva.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It was meant for my mother.”
“Was it?”
A beat passed. Outside the glass, someone crossed the hall carrying a stack of blue folders. Julian watched them go as if they had presented him with an urgent escape.
“I hadn’t decided what to do with it,” he said.
Chloe’s chin lifted. “You told me it was a gift.”
No one spoke. The words landed with the quiet force of a dropped glass.
Julian’s face hardened—not at Chloe, but at the room. “This isn’t relevant to the meeting.”
“You said it was meant for your mother,” I said. “Now you’re saying you hadn’t decided what to do with it.”
“I’m saying the details are private.”
“Then don’t let your secretary wear the details into the boardroom.”
Color rose along Chloe’s cheekbones. “I didn’t know who she was when I gave it to her.”
“You didn’t give it to me,” I said. “You poured a drink on me.”
“That’s not what happened.”
The reply came fast enough to sound rehearsed. Julian stepped toward the table.
“Claire, Chloe says you threatened her after the announcement.”
I stared at him. “I threatened her?”
“She says you told her she’d be gone before lunch.”
“I never said that.”
Julian’s gaze held mine, but his voice carried to the people still gathered by the glass. “I heard you make a remark about consequences.”
I remembered what I had said: nothing like that. I remembered the silence after he’d seen me in the stained dress, the handkerchief in his hand, Chloe’s arm linked through his.
“You’re willing to say that in front of everyone?”
His answer came without hesitation. “I’m trying to keep this from getting worse.”
Chloe looked down. The small, wounded motion was meant for the room. It worked. One of the executives shifted uncomfortably; another studied the table as if the grain might offer instructions.
Marisol’s gaze moved from Julian to Chloe, then settled on me. “There are two ways to handle this. We can note that an incident occurred and close the matter before it damages the company’s image—or we can open a formal inquiry and ask people to put their names beside what they saw.”
The room seemed to draw in around that choice. A clean record, or a difficult one. Not because I knew what else lay beneath the stain or the watch. I didn’t. That was the point.
Julian lowered his voice. “If you make this an investigation, it will follow everyone. You, too.”
“Then the record should be accurate about everyone.”
For the first time, he looked less tired than angry. The difference was small, but I knew his face too well to miss it.
Chloe folded her arms. “I’m not afraid of an inquiry.”
The lie was neat. She’d already positioned herself as the injured party; what she feared, I suspected, was someone asking questions she hadn’t prepared for.
Marisol took her seat. “Claire, what do you want entered into the record?”
My fingers rested on the edge of my board folder. I could feel the damp fabric of my dress cooling against my skin. I didn’t pull it closed.
“I want the incident documented, and I want the relevant records preserved before anyone decides what they mean.”
Julian let out a breath through his nose. “You’re making a decision before you have the facts.”
“No,” I said. “I’m asking to see them.”
Marisol studied me for a moment, then opened the red folder again. Her expression had changed—not softened, exactly, but sharpened with purpose.
“There’s one record we should examine now.”
She turned a page toward me. The printout showed a company expense entry, its lines of figures compact and gray. I leaned closer, careful not to brush my stained sleeve against the paper.
The description included the watch’s maker and model.
My throat tightened. “This was charged to Whitmore Holdings?”
“It appears on the company expense report,” Marisol said.
Julian moved to the table. “That may be a coding error.”
“Perhaps,” Marisol said. She placed a second page beside the first. “But someone altered this report after the original entry was submitted.”
May you like
The numbers blurred for a moment, then steadied. I looked up at my husband.
He didn’t look at me.
