Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Ledger
Roman’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes darkened. For the first time since I met him, the man who controlled every room he walked into looked completely caught off guard.
“Sadi, let’s go home,” Roman said, his tone shifting from protector to damage control.
“No.” I held up the slip. “This is a deposit slip from your company. Fifty thousand dollars. Paid to Trevor, three days before he cleaned out my kitchen jar and left.”
Trevor, sensing a sudden shift in power, let out a nervous, ugly laugh. “Oh, this is rich. You didn’t tell her, Vance?”
“Not another word,” Roman warned, his voice a low growl that made the security guards step closer.
“Tell me what?” I demanded. I looked between the two men. The husband who had saved me, and the ex who had broken me.
Chloe, Trevor's fiancée, was backing toward the door. “I don’t want any part of this,” she muttered, rushing out of the boutique. Trevor didn’t even try to stop her. His eyes were glued to Roman.
“He paid me to leave you, Sadi,” Trevor sneered. “You thought I left because I was tired of you? Please. I left because your billionaire husband cut me a check to disappear.”
My chest tightened. The air left my lungs.
I looked at Roman. I needed him to call Trevor a liar. I needed him to end this with one of his calm, terrifying truths.
Roman looked at me, his jaw clenched. “Sadi. It’s not what he’s making it sound like.”
“Did you pay him?” I asked, my voice cracking.
Silence stretched between us. The silence was an answer.
“You didn’t even know me three years ago,” I whispered. “We met at the gallery last year.”
“That’s what he told you?” Trevor wiped the sweat from his forehead, clearly enjoying the chaos he was causing. “Vance has been watching you a lot longer than that, Sadi. Why do you think you got that promotion at the diner the week after I left? Why do you think your landlord suddenly dropped your rent?”
I felt sick. My entire life of rebuilding. The independence I had fought so hard for. My fairy-tale romance with Roman.
Was any of it real?
“Get him out of here,” Roman commanded the guards.
They grabbed Trevor by the arms. “Careful, Vance!” Trevor shouted as they dragged him toward the exit. “She doesn’t know about the portfolio, does she? Ask him about your sketches, Sadi! Ask him!”
The doors swung shut, cutting off his voice.
The boutique was painfully quiet. Roman reached for me, but I took a step back.
“Don’t,” I said.
“Sadi, please. I did it to protect you. He was destroying you.”
I looked down at the deposit slip. I flipped it over. On the back, written in blue ink, was a locker number at the central train station.
Trevor had left this inside the watch. He had kept it as leverage.
I looked up at Roman. The man I loved. The man I suddenly didn’t know at all.
“I need to go for a walk,” I said.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, Roman. You won't.”
I walked out of the boutique alone, my hand clutching the watch and the slip. But I didn’t go home. I hailed a cab and went straight to the train station.
When I found the locker, my hands shook as I paid the attendant to crack the old combination. The metal door creaked open.
Inside sat a familiar, weathered leather bound book.
My old sketchbook. The one I thought I had thrown away.
May you like
I pulled it out and opened to the first page. Stamped across my original designs for a line of ergonomic, high-end kitchenware was a massive, red corporate seal.
Property of Vance Enterprises.
