Chapter 6 - THE CARD CHLOE NEVER KNEW SHE STOLE
Chloe cried when Valerie showed her the forged amendment.
“I didn’t know.”
Valerie was getting tired of those words.
“You were in my bedroom after my mother’s funeral.”
“Gavin sent me.”
“For what?”
“A card.”
There it was.
Chloe admitted Gavin called her while everyone was downstairs after Miriam’s memorial gathering.
He said he had accidentally left a private note inside Valerie’s room and needed Chloe to retrieve it before Valerie saw it.
“He described the envelope.”
“Blue?”
Chloe nodded.
Miriam always used blue stationery.
“You stole a birthday card from my dead mother.”
“I thought it was Gavin’s.”
“You were sleeping with my husband. How was stealing a letter from my bedroom somehow acceptable?”
Chloe wiped her eyes.
“It wasn’t.”
Valerie appreciated the answer.
No explanation.
No excuse.
Chloe handed her phone to Evelyn.
“I’ll give you everything.”
Texts.
Emails.
Photographs.
Voice notes.
Gavin had told Chloe their marriage had effectively ended eighteen months earlier.
He claimed Valerie refused divorce because she wanted money.
He said he slept in the guest room.
He did not.
He said he paid for Valerie’s business.
He did not.
He said Isabelle might not be his child.
A DNA test had already proven she was.
Yet Chloe had remained after learning several of those claims were questionable.
“You had chances to leave,” Valerie said.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Chloe looked down.
“Because I wanted the life he promised.”
That answer Valerie understood better than another lie.
“What life?”
“The house. Travel. A design studio. A family.”
“Mine.”
Chloe began crying again.
“Yes.”
For once, Valerie did not feel rage.
Only exhaustion.
Gavin had not created Chloe’s selfishness.
He had simply offered it a floor plan.
Evelyn examined the messages.
One exchange immediately mattered.
Gavin had asked Chloe six months earlier whether she would be willing to serve as a director of a company “temporarily.”
That company was Blue Harbor.
Another exchange showed Gavin asking Chloe to photograph Miriam’s card.
Then came a message Chloe had never questioned.
GAVIN: Perfect. I only needed the signature.
Chloe stared at it.
“Oh, God.”
“You helped him forge the amendment.”
“I didn’t know.”
“No. But now you do.”
Chloe agreed to sign an affidavit.
Valerie did not thank her.
Doing the right thing late was still better than never.
It did not deserve applause.
Before leaving, Chloe stopped.
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“I’m pregnant.”
Valerie felt nothing at first.
Then something small and sharp.
Not jealousy.
Pity.
“For how long?”
“Eleven weeks.”
“Does Gavin know?”
“Yes.”
“Does Florence?”
“No.”
Chloe looked terrified.
“He told me once the divorce was final, we’d move into the house and start over.”
Valerie thought about the offshore transfer.
The $900,000 loan.
The hidden debt.
“Chloe, I don’t think Gavin plans to start over with you.”
Chloe’s face changed.
“What do you mean?”
Evelyn showed her the banking records.
Chloe sat down.
Gavin had mortgaged the house he transferred to Chloe’s company.
The debt was technically attached to Blue Harbor.
To Chloe.
If Gavin disappeared, she would be left holding a property dispute, a massive loan, and potential liability.
Her hands began shaking.
“He told me the loan was for renovations.”
“It paid his debts.”
Chloe covered her mouth.
Then Evelyn found one more document connected to the loan.
A personal guarantee.
Signed by Chloe.
She stared at it.
“That’s not my signature.”
May you like
For the first time, Chloe understood exactly what Valerie had been living with.
Gavin had started forging his mistress too.
