The Wife He Never Knew I Became novel · Chapter 12 of 32
Chapter 12: Terms
Zhang Group's boardroom was on the eighteenth floor in Coal Harbour, all dark wood and a long view of the seaplanes.
There was a portrait of Daniel's father on the wall, painted from a photo, looking down at the table with a slight frown.
Seven board members sat along one side. Margaret sat at the head.
Daniel sat at her right hand, gray in the face.
Vanessa sat at the far end of the table with a laptop open, in a black suit.
Every one of them looked up when I walked in behind Holden.
Margaret's face didn't change. Her hand closed slowly around her pen.
"Mr. Rutherford," she said. "I made a request."
"I read it." Holden pulled out a chair for me, halfway down the table, and sat down in the next one. "Ms. Chen is my adviser on this. She stays or I go."
A man at the end of the board cleared his throat and looked at his hands.
"Very well," Margaret said. "Let's begin."
Holden didn't open the folder in front of him.
"My team has finished," he said. "I'll be short. Your Riverside presales are three hundred units."
"Three hundred and six," Vanessa said.
"Seventy of them aren't buyers," Holden said. "They're names. Friends, cousins, a hairdresser, two people from a church in Richmond. Their deposits were paid from the same three accounts. None of them has ever seen the inside of the presentation centre."
Nobody spoke.
"Your lenders count those seventy as sold," Holden said. "They're not."
I looked down the table at Vanessa.
She was looking at her laptop screen.
"Who are the names?" I asked.
Holden slid one page across to me.
I read down the list.
Halfway down was my aunt.
Her full name, her Richmond address, unit 1406, a two-bedroom facing the water.
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