The Double Life of My Hot Secretary novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Her Account

Tara's POV

He didn't ask me to sit, so I stood in the middle of his living room with my shoes in my hand.

He stood by the window with his arms folded. The folder lay on the glass table between us.

"Tell me from the start," Vaughn said. "Don't make it kinder."

"I won't."

I put the second phone on the table beside the folder.

"The week my mother had her stroke, Richard Draycott called me in the hospital corridor. I'd never spoken to him. He said he was sorry about Maureen, and he said the foundation would cover her care."

"And you said yes."

"I said thank you. I cried on the phone. Then he asked for one small thing."

"A text."

"One line every Friday at nine. How you were, whether you were eating. He said he was an old man who couldn't get his son to call him."

Vaughn's jaw moved. "And you believed that."

"I wanted to. I told myself he was lonely, and I told myself it was harmless."

"Is that the excuse?"

"No." My voice cracked. "It's what I told myself. It isn't an excuse."

He said nothing, so I kept going, because stopping would have been easier.

"For the first year it really was nothing. All quiet. He's at his desk."

"And then?"

"Then he started asking for more. What deal you were working on. Whether you slept. He never said it was for anything. He'd say he was worried."

"And you gave it to him."

"Three times I gave him something that mattered. Brenner. The lease. The night you went down."

"You said four."

I looked at him. "The invoice wasn't a secret. I just didn't want you to find out why it was there."

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