Chương 7
I said, “Did the manager give him anything?”
“I don’t know.”
Amber turned toward Garnet.
“This is why I told you we needed to deal with it last night.”
“Deal with what?”
She froze.
Garnet stared at her.
“What did you mean?”
“I meant the dress.”
“No.”
His voice changed.
“You said we needed to deal with it before anybody started asking questions.”
Amber’s arms dropped to her sides.
Hazel looked at me.
Garnet took one step toward his wife.
“What questions?”
Amber put her sunglasses back on.
“This is insane.”
“Amber.”
“I’m not doing this in front of them.”
She turned toward the SUV.
Garnet caught her arm.
Not hard, but enough to stop her.
She looked down at his hand.
He released her immediately.
“What happened at the hotel?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you scared?”
“I’m not scared.”
“You are.”
Amber stared at him for a long moment.
Then she said, “Your company card paid for more of this wedding than you think.”
Nobody spoke.
Garnet’s face went blank.
“What?”
She swallowed.
“The deposits.”
“What deposits?”
“The ones your father refused to cover.”
I hadn't refused anything.
No one had asked me.
Garnet looked at me anyway.
I shook my head once.
Amber stepped backward.
“It was supposed to be temporary.”
Garnet’s voice became very quiet.
“How much?”
She said nothing.
“How much, Amber?”
“Forty-eight.”
“Forty-eight hundred?”
Her silence answered before she did.
“Thousand.”
The leaf blower stopped.
The sudden quiet seemed enormous.
Garnet stared at her.
“You charged forty-eight thousand dollars to my company?”
“It wasn’t all at once.”
He actually laughed.
I had never heard a sound like it from him.
“That is your defense?”
“I was paying it back.”
“With what?”
“We had gifts coming in.”
Hazel whispered, “Oh, Amber.”
Amber’s face twisted.
“Don’t pity me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Garnet walked toward his car, then turned back as if he had forgotten where he was going.
“What account?”
Amber crossed her arms again.
“The operating card.”
He closed his eyes.
I knew enough about his business to understand the problem.
Garnet’s company had survived its first failure and grown carefully, but it was not wealthy.
Forty-eight thousand dollars would not destroy it.
The concealment might.
“Who authorized it?” I asked.
Amber looked at me.
“Stay out of this.”
Garnet answered for her.
“Only I can authorize expenses over ten.”
He pulled out his phone.
His hands were shaking now.
He opened something, scrolled, stopped, and looked up.
“Why does it say I approved them?”
Amber’s mouth tightened.
Garnet stared at her.
Then his expression changed.
Not anger.
Recognition.
“You used my login.”
She said, “You gave me the password.”
“For payroll access.”
“You never said I couldn’t—”
“Don’t.”
The word came out sharper than anything he had said all morning.
Amber went silent.
Garnet looked at the screen again.
“There are six charges.”
“I told you.”
“Three were approved while I was in Denver.”
“You can approve things remotely.”
“I was presenting at a conference.”
She looked away.
He took a slow breath.
“Did you use the authentication app on my old iPad?”
Amber said nothing.
Hazel stepped closer to me.
I could feel her tension in the space between our shoulders.
Garnet lowered the phone.
“Answer me.”
Amber’s voice dropped.
“I was going to fix it.”
He stared at her.
“You forged my approvals.”
“Don’t call it that.”
“What should I call it?”
“I was trying to give us the wedding we agreed on.”
“I agreed on thirty thousand.”
“Because your parents made you feel guilty about money.”
“No.”
“You always do that.”
“No, Amber.”
He looked at her with an exhaustion so complete that even his anger seemed to collapse beneath it.
“I said thirty because that was what we could afford.”
Amber’s eyes filled.
“You told me you wanted me to have the day I wanted.”
“I did.”
“Then what was I supposed to do when everything cost more?”
“Change the day.”
She recoiled as if he had slapped her.
Garnet looked at the house, the driveway, the phone in his hand.
Then he said the sentence nobody had managed to say for him earlier.
“I’m not going home with you.”
Amber stared at Garnet as if the sentence had been spoken by somebody standing behind him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m not getting in the car with you.”
She laughed once.
It came out too sharp.
“So you’re choosing them.”
Garnet looked down at the phone in his hand.
“No.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m choosing not to pretend this is normal.”
Her face tightened.
“You think one mistake makes me some kind of criminal now?”
Garnet held up the screen.
“This isn’t one mistake.”
“You gave me access.”
“To payroll.”
“You gave me the password.”
“That doesn’t make everything mine.”
Amber turned toward me.
“This is what you wanted.”
I shook my head.
“I didn’t know any of this.”
“You wanted him against me.”
“No.”
“You humiliated me in front of two hundred people and now suddenly my marriage is falling apart.”
Hazel stepped between us before I could answer.
“Amber, look at him.”
Amber ignored her.
“You think because you own the building and the house and whatever else you’ve hidden from him, you get to decide everything.”
The words stopped the air.
Garnet looked at me.
“What did she just say?”
Amber’s anger vanished too late.
Hazel closed her eyes.
I felt every bad decision I had made over the last twenty-four hours line up neatly in front of me.
Garnet’s voice went quiet.
“What did she mean by the building and the house?”
I could have lied.
That instinct came first.
Not because I wanted to deceive him, but because I wanted another hour before everything broke in a different direction.
I said, “Your office building is owned by one of my companies.”
He stared at me.
“And the house?”
“The same holding structure.”
His face emptied.
May you like
“You told me I bought that house.”
“No.”
