The Billionaire Bride He Took for Granted novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Ledger

Miles lays out eight years of anonymous money, Simone hears her baby's heartbeat, and Trenton rebooks the ballroom on her own credit card.

The Marchbanks family office is on the forty-first floor of a tower on Wacker Drive.

I had been there maybe a dozen times in six years, always in a cardigan, always with my hair tied back.

That Sunday morning I came in a sweatshirt, with my face scrubbed raw, and the receptionist stood up to say good morning.

Miles was waiting in the conference room with three binders and a pot of tea.

He had not slept either.

"Peppermint," he said, and slid a mug across the table. "I looked it up. It's safe."

I held the mug and said nothing for a moment.

"Show me," I said.

He opened the first binder.

"Sallis Capital's seed loan. One point five million, six years ago. Repaid at nothing, on paper, because he never made a payment."

"He said the firm was doing well."

"It was doing well. On your money."

He turned a page.

"The lease on his office, for five years. The Marchbanks Patron Fund pays the landlord directly, and Trenton thinks it's a charity that likes small firms."

"And Krista's grant."

"Four hundred thousand a year. Her equipment, her studio, a stipend." Miles laid the page flat. "You approved each of them."

"I know I did."

I wasn't defending myself.

I wanted to hear all of it.

"Why didn't you stop me?" I asked.

He took a long time to answer.

"I wrote you a memo before the first loan," he said. "Four paragraphs. You read it and said, He's building something."

"I remember."

"You said you wanted to help a man you loved without making him feel small. I thought that was a good thing to want." He closed the binder. "I still do. It just wasn't a good man to want it for."

I put the mug down.

"Did he ever know?" I said. "Did he ever once wonder where it came from?"

"No," Miles said. "I'd have heard."

He said it with complete certainty.

I believed him.

That was the part I would come back to later, when it hurt.

At ten past eleven my phone buzzed on the table.

It was the clinic, reminding me of my appointment.

I had booked it on Wednesday, the day I took the test, and I had not meant to go alone.

I looked at the clock, and then at Miles.

"I have a doctor's appointment," I said. "I'm pregnant."

He didn't move for a second.

"Congratulations," he said, quietly.

Then he stood and picked up his coat.

"I'll drive."

"You don't have to."

"I know," Miles said. "Ms. Marchbanks, let me drive."

The waiting room was beige.

He stayed in it when the nurse called my name, with a magazine about golf open in his hands.

The doctor was a brisk woman my own age who put the cold gel on my stomach without a word.

On the screen, there was a grey shape and a flicker.

"That's the heartbeat," she said. "One hundred and sixty-two. Ten weeks and two days."

The sound filled the room.

It was fast and steady and completely indifferent to everything that had happened since Saturday.

I cried then.

I had not cried at the altar or at dinner or in the car, and now I cried with my hand over my mouth while the doctor handed me tissues and looked politely at her monitor.

"Is the father here?" she asked.

"No," I said.

It was the truest thing I'd said in two days.

When I came out, Miles stood up.

He looked at my face and did not ask anything.

He only held the door for me and walked on the street side all the way to the car.

I got in, and my phone lit up in my lap.

It was Trenton.

Hey babe. I know you're mad. Don't be. I rebooked the ballroom for next Saturday, same time, 4pm.

Pipe is going to co-host a stream. It'll be so much better than the first one.

And you looked amazing, by the way. Everybody said so.

A second message came in under it.

Mom says you were a champ about it. I love you.

I read it twice.

Then my email buzzed with a receipt from the hotel.

Event deposit: $18,000.

Charged to the card on file.

It was my card.

I had left it on the booking because I had paid the first one, and Trenton had never taken it off.

I sat in the passenger seat of Miles's car with my hand on my stomach and a fast, steady heartbeat in my ears that was not mine.

"He used my card," I said.

Miles looked at the screen over my shoulder.

"Do you want me to reverse it?"

I thought about it.

Eighteen thousand dollars was a rounding error on any given Tuesday.

But he had picked up my card, in my name, and spent it on a second round of hurting me.

"No," I said. "Let him think it went through. Let him spend all of it."

I typed back with one thumb.

Can't wait. See you Saturday.

And I sent it.

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