Chương 6
Mara saw Susan make a note.
Celeste returned her attention to the screen. “Is the clinic insolvent?”
“No,” Mara said. “Not yet.”
Vincent inhaled sharply.
Mara continued before he could object. “You have strong revenue, but your liquidity reports overstated accessible cash. Several patient deposit accounts were swept to cover operating expenses. The credit agreement prohibits that.”
Celeste looked toward someone beyond the camera. “I was told those accounts were reconciled monthly.”
“By whom?” Rachel asked.
“Our CFO.”
A man’s voice answered from off-screen. “They were, until Mr. Mercer changed the treasury protocol.”
The CFO moved into view reluctantly. He was thin, balding, and visibly unwell.
Celeste stared at him. “Paul, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“I sent three memos.”
“To where?”
“Your executive account.”
“I read that account.”
Paul looked down. “Mr. Mercer said you wanted all financial communications routed through him while you were preparing for the wedding.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Vincent said, “Paul, you accepted instructions from someone with no formal title.”
“He attended every leadership meeting with your daughter.”
“That did not make him an officer.”
“You introduced him as family leadership.”
“I used a social phrase at a dinner.”
Paul’s mouth opened, then closed.
The meeting moved through numbers, dates, and proposed remedies. North Harbor would maintain essential disbursements for ten business days while the clinic supplied complete financial records, removed Adrian’s access, and appointed an independent restructuring officer. In return, Mara’s firm would defer foreclosure and conversion remedies.
Vincent objected to nearly every condition.
Celeste did not.
When Susan asked whether the acceleration itself could be rescinded, Rachel answered, “Not without investment committee approval.”
Everyone looked at Mara.
She felt Celeste waiting.
“We won’t consider reinstatement until we know where the money went,” Mara said.
Adrian had claimed the funds were used for merger expenses. The records told a messier story.
Nine hundred thousand dollars had gone to wedding vendors, travel, and jewelry.
One point two million had funded deposits on five cosmetic clinics whose owners believed Adrian represented Voss Aesthetics.
Seven hundred thousand had covered losses in a private sports-betting syndicate.
The rest had moved through brokerage accounts, tax payments, and a condominium in Miami titled to Mercer Strategic Holdings.
Celeste listened without interrupting.
At the mention of jewelry, she lifted her left hand. The engagement ring caught the office light.
“Was this purchased from the clinic account?”
Paul swallowed. “The jeweler received payment from Mercer Strategic.”
“Which received money from the clinic.”
“Yes.”
She removed the ring.
For a moment she seemed unsure where to put it. Then she laid it beside her keyboard.
Vincent stared at the ring as if it were obscene.
The conference ended after ninety-three minutes.
Before disconnecting, Celeste said, “Mara, stay.”
Rachel shook her head.
“Counsel should remain,” she said.
“No,” Celeste replied. “I’m not asking about the loan.”
Rachel glanced at Mara.
Mara nodded.
The attorneys and Vincent left the call. Celeste remained in the white office with her bare left hand folded over the other.
For several seconds neither woman spoke.
A muffled announcement sounded somewhere in the clinic. A nurse passed behind the glass wall carrying a paper bag and laughing at something out of sight. The ordinary movement made the silence harder.
Celeste looked toward the door, then back.
“Did he sell your mother’s necklace?”
Mara’s throat tightened. “Who told you?”
“His mother called me at six this morning. She said you made an accusation.”
“It wasn’t an accusation.”
Celeste rubbed the pale indentation where the ring had been.
“What happened?”
Mara could have refused. The story belonged to a different marriage and an older humiliation. But Celeste had asked without curiosity or performance.
“My mother died when I was twenty-six. She left me a gold chain with a small green tourmaline. It wasn’t especially valuable. Adrian sold it during our marriage and said it had been stolen during a move.”
“How did you find out?”
“A pawnshop database record. Years later.”
“You never confronted him?”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
“That I cared more about dead people’s things than his future.”
Celeste looked away.
“That sounds like him.”
The recognition between them was unwelcome.
Mara asked, “Did you know about me before you started seeing him?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“He said you were separated emotionally long before the divorce. He said you became paranoid about money. That you checked his receipts, monitored his accounts, accused him of stealing.”
“I did check receipts.”
“Was he stealing?”
“Yes.”
Celeste gave a brief, brittle laugh and covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
Celeste lowered her hand. “He said you tried to ruin every opportunity he had.”
“He invested our savings in a restaurant concept operated by a man who later went to prison.”
“He told me you refused to support him.”
“I refused the second restaurant.”
Celeste looked at the ring on her desk.
“Why did you finance my clinic?”
The question had waited beneath all the others.
Mara leaned back. “North Harbor financed it.”
“You control North Harbor.”
“I don’t make twenty-million-dollar decisions alone.”
“But you recommended the deal.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Your clinic was growing quickly. Your surgical outcomes were strong. You had a waiting list, experienced staff, and terrible debt terms from your previous lender.”
“You knew Adrian and I were together.”
“Not when we began diligence.”
“When did you find out?”
“Before closing.”
“And you still approved it.”
Mara remembered the investment committee room two years earlier, the projected revenue curves, the surgeon-retention reports, and Adrian’s face appearing beside Celeste’s in a magazine profile.
Rachel had advised her to disclose the personal conflict and recuse herself.
Mara had disclosed it.
She had not recused herself.
“I thought refusing a good investment because of him would mean he still controlled my decisions,” she said.
Celeste considered that.
“Did you want me to owe you?”
“No.”
May you like
“Did you want to prove you were the reason I succeeded?”
The question was cruel because there was enough truth in it to hurt.
