He Sent Me the Green Dress, So I Took His Company novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Flour and Numbers
By midnight my bakery smelled of rye and caramelizing onions, and Emmett Prendergast was sitting on an upturned flour bin with his laptop on his knees.
I had sent my baker home at noon and locked the front door.
I couldn't think unless my hands were busy, so I had started the morning dough early.
"Say it plainly," I told him over the mixer. "What does he owe?"
"Two point three million," Emmett said. "To a lender in Columbus, personal, borrowed against the company's name. It's been due since September."
"Gavin never told me he borrowed anything."
"He never told the board either. I found it in the freight yard's insurance renewal. A lender had a claim stamped on our trucks."
I switched off the mixer and the room went quiet.
"The sale pays it off," I said.
"The sale pays it off and leaves him a fortune."
"And me?"
"You'd get a check, and a tidy statement that you consented." He turned the laptop toward me. "Your signature, in three places. Look at the last one."
On the screen was my name from the term sheet, and beside it a signature from my wedding certificate.
"Same slant," he said. "Same loop on the T. But look at the downstroke on the y. Yours lifts at the end. This one stops dead."
He was right.
My y always flicked up, a habit from my father, who flicked his the same way.
"Someone copied it slowly," Emmett said. "Someone who didn't know about the lift."
"Odette," I said.
"Maybe. Or maybe Gavin traced it and Odette cleaned it up. A good expert will say traced. You'll need a good expert."
"I can pay for one."
"You can. And I'll find one who isn't on anyone's payroll."
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