Chapter 7 - WHAT AUSTIN KNEW
Austin wanted Julian detained by corporate security.
I wanted answers first.
That disagreement became our first real fight since the pool.
“You’re treating this like a board problem,” I told him.
“I’m treating him like someone who helped put you in danger.”
“And I’m treating him like someone who may lead us to the rest of it.”
Austin paced beside the hospital window.
“He had access to our home.”
“So did Vanessa.”
“He knew Lily was there.”
“So did Vanessa.”
His face tightened.
That was the point neither of us wanted to say aloud.
This hadn’t happened in an empty office.
Our daughter had watched.
Our unborn child had been inside me.
When the nurse stepped out, I asked the question I had been avoiding.
“When did you first suspect Vanessa?”
Austin stopped pacing.
“Three weeks ago.”
I stared at him.
Not forty-eight hours.
Three weeks.
“You told Margaret the audit began because of a transaction alert.”
“It did.”
“But you were already suspicious.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He unlocked his phone and opened an email.
A bank compliance officer had asked Austin to verify whether he had approved a transfer from one family discretionary account to Red Quay Holdings.
He hadn’t.
Instead of telling Margaret immediately, he had quietly asked internal finance to review it.
Julian had answered.
The transfer was supposedly legitimate.
Austin believed him for nine days.
Then another irregularity appeared.
“You trusted Julian.”
“Yes.”
“And Vanessa?”
“I confronted her privately.”
My chest tightened.
“What did she say?”
“That Red Quay was connected to a property investment and she would explain after she closed a refinancing.”
“You believed her?”
“No.”
“But you still didn’t tell me.”
“Irene, you were thirty-eight weeks pregnant.”
I stared at him.
There it was.
The excuse disguised as protection.
“You don’t get to use my pregnancy as permission to keep me ignorant.”
His face softened.
“I know.”
“No. You know now.”
He absorbed that without defending himself.
Then he said something harder.
“I also knew the baby’s birth triggered the accounting.”
I looked away.
That hurt.
Not because he had stolen anything.
Because everyone around me seemed to know my pregnancy had financial consequences except me.
Vanessa.
Julian.
Austin.
Margaret.
And I had been decorating a nursery.
Austin moved closer.
“I never believed anyone would hurt you.”
“You didn’t believe Vanessa was capable of it.”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”
We sat in silence.
Then Daniel called.
Julian had just attempted to delete a folder.
The preservation system blocked him.
Inside the folder was a scanned photograph.
Vanessa standing beside Julian.
Between them was a document folder bearing the logo of the Wentworth trust administrator.
The timestamp was two months old.
And behind them, reflected in a mirrored wall, stood Austin.
I looked at my husband.
“You were there.”
His face drained.
“I wasn’t.”
May you like
The reflection looked exactly like him.
📖 Austin’s secrecy had already damaged my trust, and now a photograph appeared to place him beside Vanessa and Julian during a meeting he swore never happened. 👇
