His Test Cost Him a Wife, Not a Negotiation novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Receipts

Pearl came up on Friday with a duffel bag, a bag of Dad's venison jerky and no plan to sleep.

By nine that night my apartment floor was covered in paper.

Every line of my bank pages lay in rows, with the wedding deposits circled in red.

The venue was $18,000 from my card.

The caterer was $14,200, from my account, in two payments.

The band and the flowers made up the rest, and they came to $9,000.

It added up to $41,200, exactly, and every page had my name on it.

"This is all yours," Pearl said, sitting back on her heels. "But a bank page isn't a ledger. Eleanor's lawyer will say you could have sent that money anywhere."

"I know."

"We need the planner's own books."

"She won't give them."

"She might." Pearl held up her phone. "She followed my porch video two days ago."

I stared at her.

"I didn't do anything," Pearl said. "I liked a post of hers about a dog. Then I sent her one message."

"What did it say?"

"It said, 'Two million people watched a bride get cheated. Want your side of the ledger in the next video?'"

"Pearl."

"What? She replied the same hour."

She turned the screen toward me.

The planner's assistant had sent a photo of a single ledger page, with a line under it: This is what I can send without being fired. Please don't use my name.

On the page, in a clean hand, was every deposit and the card it was charged to.

Four lines were mine.

One was Eleanor's, for a flat fee.

Soren, who had been sitting cross-legged against the couch with his reading glasses on, whistled once through his teeth.

"That's the case," he said. "That's everything she said was a gift, in her own accountant's handwriting."

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