Backstabbing Friend's Self-Inflicted Shame novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: What the Bed Cost

On Sunday I told Tate I was going to the lake house for the week, and he helped me carry my bag to the car.

He kissed me at the curb and said he was proud of me.

Then I drove across town and checked into a hotel on the river under my mother's maiden name.

Rafe had the room next to mine, with a door between them.

We had not unlocked it yet.

At seven that evening he knocked on it from his side, and I opened it and found him with a laptop and a yellow legal pad.

"Sit," he said. "I'll show you what your company has been paying her."

I sat on the edge of the sofa and he put the laptop on the coffee table and turned it so I could see.

He had spent the whole day in the board portal with the login I had given him, and I had not asked how he knew where to look.

There were eleven payments from Haldane Home to Harmon Ventures in two years.

Each was coded as consulting, each was under the limit that needed a second signature, and each had the same approval in the corner.

T. Burrell, COO.

He added the column with his pen.

"One million nine hundred and forty thousand dollars," he said.

I had expected a number.

It was larger than the one I had expected.

"There's more," he said. "Here, the utilities and furniture deposits on Cherry Street. Here, the car payment on the white Audi she told you was her sister's. All billed through the brand budget."

"I paid for her apartment."

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