Chapter 5 - THE TWENTY-THOUSAND-DOLLAR PAYMENT
Brooke called from a number Naomi didn’t recognize.
Naomi nearly declined.
She answered because Julia had advised her not to block relevant communications unless they became abusive.
“You ruined everything.”
No hello.
Naomi leaned against Erin’s kitchen counter.
“Good morning, Brooke.”
“Harbor Ridge froze the facility.”
“I never agreed to it.”
“Nobody said you did.”
“Then why did Arthur tell them I was supportive?”
Brooke ignored the question.
“I needed twenty thousand for interest and reserves.”
There it was.
“Interest on the Harbor Ridge loan?”
Silence.
“Brooke.”
“Yes.”
Naomi closed her eyes.
Brooke had not needed Naomi’s bank card for groceries.
Or rent.
Or an emergency invoice.
She needed Naomi to make a payment on a nearly half-million-dollar private loan Naomi did not know existed.
“How much have you borrowed?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try numbers.”
“Four-eighty was the maximum line.”
“How much is outstanding?”
“Three-sixty.”
Naomi gripped the counter.
“For interior design?”
Brooke laughed.
Not smugly this time.
Bitterly.
“You really think I spent three hundred sixty grand on throw pillows?”
“I have no idea what to think because everyone keeps lying.”
Brooke went quiet.
Naomi heard traffic through the phone.
“Ask Arthur.”
“I am asking you.”
“Then ask him why he owns thirty percent.”
Naomi stopped moving.
“Thirty percent of what?”
Brooke immediately realized she had said too much.
“Naomi—”
“Thirty percent of what?”
Brooke hung up.
Naomi called Julia.
Within an hour they were searching corporate filings.
BM Design Holdings listed Brooke as sole public manager.
No Arthur.
But private LLC operating agreements were not public.
Naomi sent Arthur one message through counsel:
Please disclose any ownership, economic, guarantee, or creditor interest you hold in BM Design Holdings or any entity funded by Harbor Ridge.
His attorney responded that they would address financial disclosures in the separation process.
Not a denial.
Naomi felt sick.
Arthur had spent more than a year telling her the money leaving their joint account was to help his struggling sister.
If he secretly owned part of whatever Brooke was funding, those transfers were no longer brotherly generosity.
They were investments.
Investments made partly with marital cash Naomi had been told was family support.
Erin asked:
“What does Brooke actually do?”
Naomi explained the design firm.
Erin frowned.
“Didn’t she start doing those luxury short-term rental interiors?”
Naomi turned.
Brooke had spent the previous year posting photographs from a restored Victorian property in Litchfield County.
She called it a client project:
The Hawthorne House.
Eleven bedrooms.
Event lawn.
Designer interiors.
Wedding-weekend packages.
Arthur had taken Naomi there once.
He knew every detail.
At the time he claimed Brooke had talked about the project constantly.
Naomi searched the address.
The property owner was not Brooke Morrison Interiors.
It was BM Design Holdings.
Purchase price:
$1.65 million.
Naomi stared at the screen.
Brooke had not borrowed $480,000 to keep an interior-design business alive.
May you like
She and Arthur were financing a luxury hospitality investment.
The twenty thousand dollars at breakfast had been intended to keep their secret property deal from defaulting.
