Chapter 8: The Night Before

Russell's POV

Kayla found me on Monday evening in the motel's diner, eating toast I did not want.

She slid into the booth across from me and put a laptop on the table.

"I quit," she said.

"Kayla, you can't."

"I gave notice. Two weeks. I'm not making you feel guilty. I just wanted you to hear it from me."

"What are you going to do?"

"Find a company where the CEO doesn't wear a stranger's ring."

She almost smiled.

Then she opened the laptop and turned it toward me.

"That's not why I came," she said. "Brody Hartnell's file came across my desk three weeks ago, and I noticed his references didn't call back."

"So I looked."

On the screen was a county court record.

*Hartnell Home Furnishings, three showrooms. Notice of default. Two liens. Foreclosure hearing in eleven weeks.*

"His father's company," she said. "It's going under."

"And three weeks ago, Brody asked Allison for a job and got one."

I stared at it.

"The Instagram with the flowers and the ring," Kayla said. "I looked at the date stamps. It was a staged shoot, taken at a florist's shop."

"The same week the foreclosure notice came."

"He's not in love with her, Russell. He's after her signature."

"On what?"

"I don't know yet. But a man in his position doesn't wear her ring for fun."

I sat back.

I felt something I had not felt in a week.

It was not grief.

It was a very cold, clear, steady anger.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Wife Hid Me at Work, Now I Own Her Company from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.