Chapter 3 - THE DEBT HE NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT
The next morning, I met Camille in a diner outside Fredericksburg.
Not because I trusted her.
Because anger is occasionally useful fuel.
She arrived without makeup.
Her eyes were swollen.
No champagne dress.
No dramatic folded speech.
Just a woman who looked exhausted.
I did not invite her to sit.
She did anyway.
“You have five minutes.”
“I deserve less.”
“Correct.”
Her eyes lowered.
“Everett lied to both of us.”
“That does not make us teammates.”
“I know.”
“Did you know about the ranch?”
“No.”
“Did you know he forged my signature?”
“No.”
“Did you know about the money?”
“Some of it.”
I laughed.
“There it is.”
She flinched.
Camille explained that her older brother, Grant Porter, ran a commercial construction business in Austin.
Two years earlier, Everett invested in one of Grant’s developments.
The project collapsed.
Permits failed.
Investors lost money.
Grant blamed Everett for hiding an engineering report.
“How much?”
I asked.
“Three hundred thousand.”
I went cold.
“Everett owed your brother three hundred thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
“And you still came to my wedding crying about him?”
Shame crossed her face.
“I wasn’t there because I wanted him back.”
“Your performance suggested otherwise.”
“I was told to do it.”
I stared.
“By whom?”
“Grant.”
That answer was so absurd I almost laughed.
“Your brother told you to interrupt my wedding?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Everett promised the money would clear before the ceremony.”
My stomach dropped.
“And it didn’t.”
“No.”
“So Grant wanted to humiliate him?”
Camille shook her head.
“He wanted to force Everett outside.”
“For what?”
Her hands began shaking.
“To sign another transfer.”
I sat down.
The folded paper Camille had held at the ceremony had not been a love letter.
It had been a promissory agreement.
Everett had gone to her because he recognized the paperwork.
The hug?
Camille closed her eyes.
“I panicked.”
“You sobbed loudly enough to stop a quartet.”
“I know.”
“You told him you couldn’t watch him marry someone else.”
“Grant told me exactly what to say.”
I stared at her.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“But it’s true.”
I wanted to hate her cleanly.
That would have been easier.
Then Camille slid her phone across the table.
A voicemail.
Grant’s voice:
“If Cross marries her before he signs, Hale becomes legally harder to separate from the assets. Stop the ceremony. Get him outside. I don’t care how.”
My skin went cold.
This had been about money before it was ever about feelings.
But then Camille said something worse.
“Everett and I did have an affair.”
The diner seemed to tilt.
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
I stopped breathing.
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
My fingers curled around the coffee mug.
“Why did it end?”
“Because he told me he was never leaving you.”
That hurt more than I expected.
Not because I wanted him.
Because he had been cheating while telling me Camille was “just emotional.”
She whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
I stood.
“We’re done.”
“Madison.”
“No.”
“One more thing.”
I looked back.
Camille’s face had gone pale.
“Grant doesn’t just want the money.”
“What else?”
“He wants your ranch.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Why?”
“Because there’s something underneath it.”
My anger paused.
“What?”
She swallowed.
May you like
“Natural gas rights worth millions.”
And Everett had known about them for almost a year.
