“There is no us,” I said. “You tried to frame me.”
Richard arrived twenty minutes later, walking through the front doors without a tie, his anger tightly controlled.
The staff stepped aside for him.
He looked at Elaine first. “You humiliated my best operator in front of customers.”
“She is my daughter-in-law,” Elaine said, as if that explained everything.
Richard’s answer was ice. “She is my employee. And unlike your son, she earned her title.”
Grant was terminated before noon.
His vendor accounts were frozen.
The cousin behind the shell company tried to blame everything on a misunderstanding until legal showed him the invoices.
Elaine was escorted out last, still insisting everyone would regret humiliating her.
Nobody did.
By Monday, Belle & Vale publicly announced my promotion.
By Wednesday, I filed for divorce with copies of the fraud report attached.
Grant begged me not to “destroy his future.”
I told him he had mistaken exposure for destruction.
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