Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN I PLANNED TO MARRY HAD ANSWERED MY WIFE’S CALL
Ashley came to my house at seven that evening.
She used the gate code.
I changed it while she was still driving up the hill.
She entered through the front door with a white garment bag over one arm.
“Our engagement photos are tomorrow.”
“No.”
She stopped.
“No what?”
“No engagement photos.”
Her eyes moved toward the dining table.
David’s preliminary report sat there.
Hospital note on top.
“You hired someone.”
“Yes.”
She dropped the garment bag.
“Michael.”
“Did you answer Piedmont Macon’s call about Emily?”
Ashley stared at the report.
“I can explain.”
My chest hollowed.
The wrong answer.
“Then explain.”
She walked toward the kitchen.
“I need water.”
“You need words.”
She turned.
“Your mother asked me to handle calls.”
“My mother?”
“After the divorce.”
“Why would a hospital call you?”
“They called the office.”
“You answered?”
“I was there.”
“You identified yourself as a family representative.”
“I was your fiancée.”
“You were not my fiancée eleven months ago.”
Silence.
We had started officially dating seven months earlier.
Ashley had been around Carter Development much longer.
She ran a strategic-communications consultancy.
My mother hired her for corporate crisis work.
Ashley and I knew each other socially before the divorce.
I had never believed anything happened between us while Emily and I were married.
Now every date in my memory shifted.
“What exactly did the hospital say?”
“That Emily was pregnant.”
“Pregnant or had delivered?”
Ashley looked away.
“Delivered.”
I stared.
“They told you she had given birth.”
“Yes.”
“Twins?”
“Yes.”
I sat because my knees suddenly felt unreliable.
“You knew I had two children.”
“I did not know they were yours.”
“Did Emily say they were mine?”
“The nurse said she listed you as emergency contact.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Ashley closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
My hand hit the table before I realized I moved.
Not toward her.
Palm flat against wood.
“You knew.”
“She had been accused of an affair.”
“Accused.”
“You believed it too.”
“I believed the evidence.”
“What did you tell the nurse?”
“That the family was aware.”
“Were we?”
“Your mother was.”
“My mother knew?”
Ashley stopped.
My stomach turned.
“Did my mother know Emily had delivered my children?”
“She knew Emily had delivered children.”
“Mine.”
“We did not have paternity.”
“Did anyone tell me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Eleanor believed contact would reopen the divorce and create a mess before we knew the truth.”
I laughed.
A sound I did not recognize.
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
“What else did you do?”
Ashley folded her arms.
“Do not turn me into the villain because you feel guilty.”
“Answer me.”
“I took a call.”
“Only one?”
Silence.
“Ashley.”
“I spoke to the hospital twice.”
“Emails?”
Her eyes shifted.
I felt sick.
“You blocked her.”
“No.”
“You blocked her from me.”
“Your office had already been told not to route Emily.”
“By whom?”
“Your mother.”
I walked toward my study.
I opened the old divorce file.
Emily’s letters were not there.
I called David.
“Check my office communications from last January through October.”
“Michael—”
“Company email, assistant logs, mailroom. Get counsel involved.”
“I can do that if Carter authorizes lawful review.”
“I authorize it as CEO.”
“Board conflict?”
He was right.
“Fine. I’ll get outside counsel.”
Ashley stood behind me.
“You’re going to tear apart the company because your ex-wife looked sad on a highway.”
I turned.
“She was carrying my children.”
“You don’t know that.”
I looked at Ashley.
For the first time, I realized she was not only frightened of losing me.
She was frightened of what paternity would do.
“Why do you care so much whether they’re mine?”
Her face went still.
“What?”
“You keep saying it.”
“Because it matters.”
“To whom?”
“To you.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“To my mother?”
Ashley grabbed the garment bag.
“You’re spiraling.”
“Go.”
“Michael.”
“Go.”
She stared.
Then her expression hardened.
“Fine.”
At the door she turned.
“You want to know why Emily lost everything? Ask her why she was meeting another man in a hotel.”
I said nothing.
“You saw the photographs.”
“Yes.”
“You heard the witness.”
“Yes.”
“You saw your mother’s necklace in Emily’s dresser.”
My stomach tightened.
“Yes.”
“You saw seventy thousand dollars leave your joint account.”
“Yes.”
“And now because two blond babies exist, you suddenly think all of it was fake?”
“I think I was wrong about at least one thing.”
“What?”
“I thought you were someone I could trust.”
She left.
The next morning, David called with another piece.
The hotel photographs had been taken by a licensed private investigator named Nolan Pierce.
“He says your mother’s office retained his firm.”
“My mother?”
“Payment came through Bennett Strategic Communications.”
Ashley.
“What was he hired to document?”
“Emily meeting a man at the Whitley Hotel in Atlanta.”
“Who was the man?”
“Wade Lawson.”
The name was familiar.
Former controller at Carter Development.
My father fired him seven years earlier.
“What was Emily doing with Wade?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Was he paid to meet her?”
“No indication yet.”
“What about the witness who claimed they kissed?”
“His name is Travis Cobb.”
“Do we know him?”
“Contract event staff. He received twelve thousand dollars from a Bennett-linked consulting account two weeks after giving your divorce lawyer an affidavit.”
My throat tightened.
“Twelve thousand.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Invoice says field research.”
“What about the necklace?”
“Your house security archived exterior entry logs longer than video. Ashley’s credential entered the property the afternoon before the necklace was found.”
“She had a credential?”
“Your mother issued one.”
I looked toward the lake.
“And the missing seventy thousand?”
“That one’s real.”
“Emily transferred it?”
“Her login initiated it.”
I closed my eyes.
“Where did it go?”
“First to a company called BCG Administrative Solutions.”
“BCG?”
“Owned by Ashley’s brother, Brandon Bennett.”
There it was.
Everything circling her.
Then David said, “But Brandon did not keep the money.”
My eyes opened.
“Where did it go?”
“Sixty-four thousand moved five days later.”
“To whom?”
He hesitated.
“Carter Family Advisory Services.”
May you like
My mother’s private family-office entity.
Ashley’s brother had moved the money supposedly stolen by Emily directly into an entity controlled by Eleanor Carter.
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