smaller than he had in the parking garage. Smaller than he had ever looked. ‘Yes.’
The word did not explode. It sank.
I nodded once. ‘Get out.’
‘Please let me explain.’
‘You forged my signature.’
‘I was trying to save him.’
‘You risked me.’
He reached for my hand. I moved back.
His eyes filled. It was the first time that night I saw real fear in him, but it still was not fear for what he had done to me. It was fear of consequences.
‘If you report this, Grant loses everything,’ he said.
There was the truth, standing naked in the kitchen.
Even now, he was thinking of Grant.
I picked up my phone and called my attorney.
Aaron whispered my name three times while it rang.
The next morning, the first consequence arrived before breakfast. Grant called me seventeen times. I did not answer. He texted once, then again, then again. His messages began with anger, moved to bargaining, and ended with something close to panic.
At 9:14 a.m., he came to my office.
My assistant, Tessa, met him in the front room and told him I was unavailable. Grant pushed past her, red-faced and sweating through his expensive shirt.
I was in the tasting room with my attorney, my operations director, and two folders of invoices.
Grant stopped when he saw the others.
‘This is insane,’ he said. ‘You are destroying me because of a joke.’
I looked at him across the long white table where brides usually tasted lemon curd and buttercream.
‘Sit down, Grant.’
‘I am not one of your employees.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘My employees know better than to speak to me that way.’
His mouth tightened, but he sat.
My attorney opened the invoice file. We had found more than insults overnight. We had found rush fees billed on days no rush orders existed. Replacement charges for items never damaged. Delivery surcharges for venues less than four miles from his warehouse. Duplicate floral frame rentals hidden under different project names.
The total was not small.
Grant stared as my attorney listed the discrepancies.
His anger drained into something uglier.
‘Aaron said you never checked those details,’ he muttered.
My chest tightened.
‘Aaron said what?’
Grant realized too late what he had revealed.
My attorney looked at me.
I looked at Grant.
‘Start talking,’ I said.
He tried to stand, but Tessa had already shut the tasting room door.
Grant did not confess out of remorse. He confessed because he was cornered. Aaron had known about some inflated fees, he said. Not all, maybe, but enough. Aaron had told him Willow Table was big enough to absorb it. Aaron had said I was too busy with menus and staffing to notice vendor coding. Aaron had said once the showroom opened, everything would stabilize.
By noon, my marriage was no longer broken.
It was evidence.
The legal process that followed was slow, humiliating, and precise. I reported the forged signature. I separated my accounts. I filed for divorce. The loan was challenged. The vendor contract was terminated for cause. Voss & Frame lost the retainer, then the warehouse, then the borrowed glamour that had made Grant seem untouchable.
People talked, of course. Savannah loves a polished table and a private collapse.
Some said I
