Roses Revenge novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Second Thing

Nobody at the table offered Colton a napkin.

He looked at his bleeding hand and then at the faces around him.

"It's nothing," he said. "I'm fine. Everyone, please. This is a misunderstanding."

The lead investor sat back down and folded her hands.

"Is it?" she said.

"Rose is upset about a personal matter." He gave a short laugh. "We had a disagreement. It's a lovers' quarrel."

"We are not lovers," I said. "You gave that up on Tuesday night."

Paisley's chair scraped as she tried to stand. Colton caught her wrist under the table without looking at her.

"Rose has been under a lot of stress," he told the investors.

"She hasn't been herself. She resigned in the middle of a quarter."

"And she's been making accusations."

"Accusations of what?" the investor asked.

He opened his mouth.

I took out my phone and set it on the white tablecloth beside her plate.

"May I?" I said.

She nodded.

I opened the photographs I had taken in the condo on Wednesday, and slid the phone across to her.

"That's a lease," I said. "The lessee is Brewer Labs. The driver is the woman sitting next to him in the red dress."

She read it.

"The note at the bottom is in Colton's handwriting," I said. "It says to charge it to the operations budget as a client vehicle."

Paisley made a sound in her throat.

"Rose," Colton said. "Stop."

"The same week, he cut my salary in half and canceled my bonus."

"He told forty people it was because of my errors."

"Then he put a retention package in that budget for the woman with the car."

The investor lifted her eyes from the phone.

"Mr. Brewer. Is this true?"

"It's out of context."

"What is the context for a car?"

"She's key talent."

"She is your personal assistant," the investor said, quite evenly.

One of the partners beside her coughed into his fist.

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