Chapter 2 - THE WEDDING HE NEVER AGREED TO
Clare didn't confront Nathaniel until they were inside his car.
The photograph lay between them.
A church.
A smiling Victoria.
Nathaniel standing beside her.
And a date printed beneath the image.
June 14.
Exactly four months away.
“Were you planning to marry her?” Clare asked.
Nathaniel looked down.
His expression changed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Victoria.”
He closed his eyes.
“Of course.”
“Is it real?”
“The photograph is real.”
Clare felt her chest tighten.
“And the wedding?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
Nathaniel took a breath.
“Victoria's family funded a restoration project at that chapel. My father insisted I attend the opening.”
Clare waited.
“Photographers were there. Someone later attached a wedding announcement to the image.”
“Someone?”
Nathaniel looked at her.
“Victoria.”
Clare studied his face.
She wanted to believe him.
But she'd spent too much of her life watching powerful institutions use carefully selected facts to conceal larger truths.
“Did you tell her to stop?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Last month.”
“And your father?”
“He knows I'm not marrying her.”
Clare looked out the window.
“Then why did I have to find out about an alleged wedding from Victoria?”
Nathaniel had no answer.
That silence hurt more than the photograph.
When they reached Clare's apartment, she unbuckled her seat belt.
“Nathaniel, I don't need to compete with another woman for your attention.”
“You aren't.”
“Then stop placing me in situations where I have to prove that.”
He reached for her hand.
She gently moved it away.
“I need time.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
For three days, Clare avoided his calls.
Then she received an email from an anonymous account.
Subject: YOUR RESEARCH.
Inside was an attachment containing confidential billing data from Ashcroft Pharmaceutical Distribution.
Clare recognized the figures immediately.
The reimbursement patterns.
The unexplained price increases.
The suspicious routing of charitable drug assistance payments.
She'd spent months studying precisely this kind of abuse.
Now the evidence was sitting inside her inbox.
At the bottom of the message was a warning.
“Someone inside Ashcroft Holdings knows what you've discovered.”
Clare's hands turned cold.
She opened the final attachment.
It was a spreadsheet identifying hospitals whose assistance claims had been improperly denied.
One name stood out.
St. Catherine's Medical Center.
The hospital where Clare's mother had died after struggling to afford treatment.
Then she read the authorization line.
The person who had approved the questionable reimbursement policy was Douglas Ashcroft.
And beside his signature appeared another name.
Nathaniel Ashcroft.
May you like
Her breath stopped.
Because the date showed that Nathaniel had signed it only two weeks before meeting her.
