Chapter 4 - THE DINNER WHERE DAMIAN FINALLY SPOKE
Brenda expected another evening of champagne and expensive conversation.
Instead, her brother walked into the dining room carrying a black folder.
Gertrude was seated beside three members of her social circle.
Fiona stood near the doorway, apparently deciding whether she should disappear into the kitchen again.
Damian saw her hesitation.
It made him sick.
“Fiona.”
She looked up.
“Come sit beside me.”
Brenda laughed.
“Oh, Damian. She prefers the kitchen.”
“No.”
His voice was quiet.
“She was made to believe she belonged there.”
The room went silent.
Gertrude set down her glass.
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
Damian looked at his mother.
“It means my wife will never again need an invitation to sit at her own dining table.”
Fiona stared at him.
He pulled out the chair beside his.
Then turned toward Brenda.
“And you are leaving this house tomorrow.”
Brenda’s smile vanished.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Because Fiona complained about dinner?”
“No.”
He opened the folder.
“Because I found out what happened to the employee-assistance funds.”
Gertrude went pale.
Brenda immediately recovered.
“Those transactions were authorized.”
“By whom?”
“Your family office.”
“Under authority I never knowingly gave for those payments.”
Victor Hales’s name appeared on the first document.
Westbridge Advisory appeared on the second.
The third contained Fiona’s disputed Harbor House complaint.
Damian laid them across the table.
“Explain.”
Brenda folded her arms.
“You’re embarrassing yourself in front of our guests.”
“Then they’re free to leave.”
Nobody moved.
Damian looked directly at her.
“You accused Fiona of stealing money.”
“Because she sold family jewelry.”
“Jewelry I gave her.”
“She used it to finance some ridiculous charity project.”
“She used it to help employees our organization had apparently abandoned.”
Gertrude stood.
“Damian, you are allowing your wife to turn you against your own blood.”
He looked at Fiona.
She had gone completely still.
For years, she had heard variations of that sentence.
Now Damian finally understood how thoroughly he had left her alone.
“Mom, Fiona was my family before any of this money existed.”
Gertrude’s lips tightened.
“She was an ordinary girl when you married her.”
“Yes.”
Damian’s voice hardened.
“And I was an ordinary man.”
The words landed like a slap.
“You seem to have forgotten that.”
Brenda pushed back her chair.
“You have no idea what Fiona has been doing behind your back.”
“I know she has been paying medical bills.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me.”
Brenda looked toward Fiona.
Something like triumph returned to her face.
“She’s been liquidating assets for months.”
Fiona closed her eyes.
Damian glanced at her.
“What assets?”
Brenda pulled out her phone.
“Your wife sold the sapphire necklace you bought her in Paris. She sold the diamond bracelet from your tenth anniversary. And she’s been meeting lawyers without telling you.”
Damian looked at Fiona.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
Brenda smiled.
“There.”
Damian turned back.
“And?”
The smile disappeared.
“She’s preparing to leave you!”
The room went completely silent.
Fiona’s face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Damian looked at her.
“Fiona?”
For several seconds, she said nothing.
Then she reached into her handbag and placed a business card on the table.
A family-law attorney.
Damian stopped breathing.
His wife had not merely been helping others escape difficult circumstances.
May you like
She had been preparing to leave their marriage.
And Brenda had known before he did.
