Chapter 6 - The Meeting Changes
Charles didn’t ask to hear gossip.
He asked for facts.
That immediately separated him from Lauren.
I showed him the restaurant footage. Tasha documented the time stamps. I told him I had received anonymous screenshots but would not forward them because I could not verify their chain of custody.
Charles nodded once.
“Good.”
Lauren sat rigidly across from us.
“This is insane,” she said. “A spilled glass is now a compliance investigation?”
Charles looked at her.
“No. The compliance investigation existed before I walked in.”
Her face changed.
Ethan folded his arms.
Charles continued. “A staff member filed a protected complaint this morning. It alleges misattribution of work, retaliation, and improper alteration of client records.”
Lauren’s voice sharpened. “Ava.”
Charles said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Lauren turned to me. “You set this up.”
“I met you thirty minutes ago for the first time in seventeen years.”
“You hate me.”
“That doesn’t make your employee’s evidence mine.”
Charles ended the business meeting immediately. Lauren was instructed not to contact junior staff while compliance reviewed the complaint.
She stood.
Her hands were shaking now, but her eyes were furious.
At the door, she looked back at me.
“You think you won.”
“This isn’t high school.”
“That’s what you keep saying.” She smiled coldly. “Maybe you should ask Ethan what he told us before the meeting.”
I looked at my husband.
Lauren saw it.
And enjoyed it.
Charles told her to leave.
After the door shut, I turned to Ethan.
“What is she talking about?”
He looked genuinely confused.
“I don’t know.”
Charles opened his leather folder.
“There is one thing you both should see.”
He slid a printed email across the table.
It had been sent from an address that looked almost exactly like Ethan’s executive assistant’s.
The message said:
MAYA BENNETT WILL NOT ATTEND. DIRECT ALL RELATIONSHIP QUESTIONS TO ETHAN.
Ethan stared at it.
“I never authorized this.”
I looked at the sender again.
May you like
One letter in the domain was wrong.
Someone had wanted Lauren to believe I wouldn’t be there.
