Chapter 8 - The Boundary That Cost Them Everything
Vivian refused Damon’s demand that she call his lender and “clear up the misunderstanding.”
“There is no misunderstanding.”
“They think I lied about family backing.”
“Did you?”
“Audrey told me you were helping us.”
Vivian looked across Melissa’s office at the stack of transfer records.
“Then talk to your wife.”
Damon cursed and hung up.
That afternoon Audrey appeared outside Vivian’s gate again.
This time she didn’t ask to come inside.
She stood beneath the security lights while Vivian spoke through the intercom.
“Damon knows.”
“I figured.”
“He says I ruined his company.”
“You lied to him about my money.”
Audrey nodded.
“He threw a chair through our hotel-room television.”
Vivian’s entire body tightened.
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Vivian wanted to open the gate.
Every instinct she had as a mother demanded it.
Instead she said, “I’ll pay for a separate hotel room for you tonight. Directly to the hotel. Damon cannot stay there.”
Audrey’s face crumpled.
“You won’t let me come home?”
“Not while you’re still protecting him from what he did.”
Audrey whispered, “You’re my mother.”
“Yes.”
“That should mean something.”
“It does. That’s why I’m not giving you cash and pretending this is normal.”
Vivian arranged a room for Audrey at a hotel near Lenox Square.
It was the first help she had ever given her daughter with conditions attached.
Audrey accepted.
Damon did not.
Within an hour he sent Vivian eleven messages.
The last one was different from the others.
Tell Audrey to stop talking to the bank.
Vivian read it twice.
May you like
She had never told Damon that Audrey had spoken to the bank.
Which meant someone else had.
