Chapter 13
Mia called me from the lobby.
“He says it’s urgent.”
“Put him in Conference Room Three.”
Dana met me in the parking garage.
We went upstairs together.
When Nathan saw her, the color drained from his face.
“Why is she here?”
Dana closed the door.
“I’m Laurel’s attorney.”
“I know who you are.”
“Good.”
Nathan looked at me.
“I wanted to talk privately.”
“We’re past private.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Brynn is losing it.”
Not the opening sentence I expected.
“What happened?”
“She thinks you’re trying to destroy her.”
“I didn’t invoice Rowe & Vale for $186,000.”
His face froze.
There are expressions people make before they decide which lie to choose.
Nathan had one.
It lasted less than a second.
But I saw it.
“You know about that.”
“Yes.”
He looked at Dana.
Then back at me.
“Laurel, I didn’t know what she was doing.”
“Which part?”
“The consulting.”
“What part did you know?”
He didn’t answer.
Dana did not interrupt.
Silence was becoming the most useful person in the room.
Finally Nathan said, “Brynn told me she was helping companies with market intelligence.”
“With my files?”
“No.”
“Did you take my recovery codes?”
His head jerked.
“What?”
“The envelope from the fireproof box.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Interesting.”
“Laurel, listen to me.”
“No. You listen.”
My voice remained quiet.
That seemed to unsettle him more.
“You had an affair with my best friend. You lied about where you were. You searched my company records, my valuation, my ownership documents, and my postnuptial agreement.”
“I did not search your company records.”
Dana slid one page across the table.
It showed an access session from our home network at 9:03 Saturday morning.
At 9:04, Nathan had connected his personal laptop to the same router.
The MAC address from one device could not prove the other action belonged to him.
But the timing was uncomfortable.
Nathan read the page.
“This proves nothing.”
“Correct,” Dana said.
He looked at her.
For the first time, he seemed to understand that we knew that too.
We were not bluffing.
We were collecting.
“I didn’t steal anything,” he said.
“Then help us understand,” I replied.
He stared at the table.
What followed came slowly.
Nathan claimed Brynn had first asked him for help eight months earlier.
She wanted “industry information” because she was trying to build a consulting business.
She asked whether I kept old project proposals.
Nathan told her I did.
Then she asked whether he could access them.
At first, he said no.
Then she told him she only needed examples to understand how design firms priced large projects.
He eventually photographed the recovery codes.
My recovery codes.
The ones from the fireproof box.
“How many times?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“You photographed them once.”
“Yes.”
“And gave them to her.”
“Yes.”
The confession should have felt like victory.
It didn’t.
It felt like standing in the ruins of a house and discovering who had handed over the matches.
“When did the affair start?”
He looked at me.
“Later.”
“How much later?”
“About two months after.”
“So you compromised my company before you started sleeping with her.”
Nathan flinched.
“Yes.”
That mattered.
The affair had not caused the theft.
The theft came first.
“Why?”
“She made it sound harmless.”
I almost lost my composure then.
“Harmful things don’t become harmless because Brynn uses a friendly voice.”
“I know that now.”
May you like
“No. You know you got caught now.”
His eyes filled with something that might have been shame.
