Chương 7
She swallowed.
“He left.”
I said nothing.
“He told me he had to handle a business emergency.”
A bitter smile crossed her face.
“Apparently the emergency was his wife finding out.”
I looked down at the table.
There was a strange sadness in that moment.
Not sympathy for what she had done.
But recognition that another person had been hurt by the same man in a different way.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
Selina took a long breath.
“I don’t know.”
That was probably the most honest thing she had said.
“I thought you would hate me.”
“I did.”
She nodded.
“I understand.”
“But hate is simple.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“Simple emotions are easy.”
I touched the edge of my coffee cup.
“The difficult ones are when you realize the person who hurt you is also capable of hurting someone else.”
Selina looked down.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
“I believe you.”
Her eyes moved back to mine.
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
She nodded.
The conversation ended twenty minutes later.
Not because everything was resolved.
Because some things could not be resolved in one meeting.
Outside the restaurant, we stood on the sidewalk.
For a moment, neither of us knew what to say.
Then Selina spoke.
“I should have known.”
I looked at her.
“Known what?”
“That a man who could lie to his wife could lie to me.”
The sentence was simple.
But it carried more weight than any apology.
I watched her walk away.
When I returned to the office, Phoebe was still working.
She looked up.
“You met her.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
I placed my phone on the desk.
“She didn’t know about the company money.”
Phoebe stopped typing.
“That’s interesting.”
“She also gave me this.”
I showed her the message.
Phoebe read it silently.
Her expression changed.
“That’s worse than I expected.”
“Why?”
“Because it proves intent.”
I looked at her.
“Explain.”
“Someone knew you were the obstacle.”
She pointed at the screen.
“This wasn’t just an affair.”
The words felt heavier than I wanted them to.
“What do you mean?”
Phoebe closed the file in front of her.
“I think Flynn believed he could control the outcome.”
That sounded exactly like him.
But there was something missing.
“Who else knew?”
Phoebe looked at the documents.
“That’s the question.”
Over the next few days, the investigation became more complicated.
The board appointed an outside firm to review the financial records.
Flynn was officially placed on administrative leave.
The media began following every movement around Vance Global.
Some articles painted me as the wronged wife.
Others questioned whether I had known more than I admitted.
A few suggested I was using a personal dispute to gain control of the company.
I expected that.
What I did not expect was how much it bothered me.
Not because strangers were criticizing me.
Because part of me feared they were asking questions I had asked myself.
Had I ignored signs because I wanted the marriage to survive?
Had I allowed Flynn too much power?
Had my silence contributed to the damage?
Those questions followed me into meetings.
They followed me home.
One night, I sat on the floor of my apartment surrounded by old photographs.
Not because I wanted to remember Flynn.
Because I wanted to remember myself before him.
There was a picture of my father and me outside the first Vance Global building.
I was twenty-four.
My hair was shorter.
My father looked tired but happy.
I remembered that day because he had handed me a set of keys.
“This place will outgrow us,” he said.
I laughed.
“You mean the company?”
“No.”
He looked at the building.
“I mean the responsibility.”
At the time, I thought he was talking about business.
Now I understood.
The responsibility was not owning something.
It was deciding what to do when that thing was threatened.
The next morning, Fiona called me before sunrise.
“Something happened.”
I sat up immediately.
“What?”
“The outside investigators found a problem.”
My stomach tightened.
“What kind of problem?”
“Someone accessed internal records before the review began.”
“Flynn?”
“No.”
Her answer came too quickly.
“Then who?”
There was silence.
“Claire, we found a deleted authorization request.”
I stood.
“From whom?”
“Your father’s old executive account.”
I froze.
“My father died six years ago.”
“I know.”
The silence that followed felt impossible.
“Then how?”
Fiona’s voice lowered.
“That’s what we need to find out.”
I looked at the photograph on my desk.
My father’s face stared back at me.
For the first time since this began, the past was no longer just a memory.
It was part of the problem.
And somewhere inside Vance Global, someone had been hiding a secret long before Flynn betrayed me.
And somewhere inside Vance Global, someone had been hiding a secret long before Flynn betrayed me.
I stayed silent after Fiona ended the call.
Not because I did not have questions.
Because suddenly I had too many.
My father’s name was attached to something impossible.
An authorization request created after his death should not have existed.
It was not a rumor.
It was not someone’s interpretation.
It was a record.
And records were supposed to be the one thing people could not rewrite.
I drove to headquarters before most employees arrived.
The lobby was almost empty.
The security guard looked surprised to see me that early.
“Morning, Claire.”
“Morning, James.”
He hesitated.
“You need anything?”
The question sounded ordinary, but I heard what he was really asking.
Was everything okay?
Was the company okay?
Was he about to lose his job because powerful people had made reckless choices?
“I’m fine,” I said.
It was not entirely true.
But I was learning that leadership often required saying things that were incomplete without becoming lies.
The executive floor was quiet.
The lights were on in some offices.
May you like
A cleaning employee moved slowly through the hallway with a cart, listening to music through one earbud.
For a few seconds, everything felt normal.
