Marrying Mr. Wrong (Dirty Martini Running Club #3) - Claire Kingsley Page 0,87
her name.”
I glanced over the documents. “Two car loans? Why would she… Where did you get all this?”
“I have sources. Did part of your agreement with her include paying off all her debt?”
“No. She never even brought it up.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” She paused and a sense of dread stole over me, like she was about to drop the hammer. “Her debt is gone. She paid it all. Every cent.”
I knew exactly what she was implying, but every cell in my body screamed no. It couldn’t be true. Sophie wouldn’t. She couldn’t have.
“Gone?”
“Every loan, every credit card, all with a zero balance. You’re sure you didn’t do it? Maybe she confided in you late one night and you decided to take care of it for her when you were half asleep? Or drunk again?”
I shook my head slowly. “No.”
“I know that you wanted to believe in her. That you were convinced she didn’t marry you for your money, but—”
“Let’s be clear, right now, before you continue,” I said, cutting her off. “You’re telling me you think Sophie stole money from me.”
“I think it’s quite obvious that she did.”
“How the fuck could she have done that? She doesn’t have access to anything.”
“The payoff dates on every loan are within a few days of each other. And they’re all when you were in Houston.”
What the fuck? A pit formed in my gut. There had to be another explanation. But if there was, I wasn’t coming up with anything.
“I’m sorry this is hard to hear,” Althea continued. “But she was there, alone in your house that whole week. She could have gotten your account numbers off your computer or your checkbook if you keep one around.”
Althea was right. She could have done either of those things. My passwords were all saved and I had a checkbook I never used in the top drawer of my desk.
I still wasn’t ready to believe it. “If all she wanted was money to pay off her debt, why not tell me up front? I offered her a settlement to wait to file for divorce. She could have just asked me to pay it off for her and called it a day.”
“Think about it. She asked you for something that appeared completely altruistic. Who wouldn’t trust a woman who seems to want nothing but the good of her elderly father? She saw a way to get closer to you and she took it.”
“You’ve got her all wrong. She isn’t like that. Besides, I was in Houston over a month ago. Why is she still here if all she wanted was my money to get rid of her debt?”
“I realize you have so much money, you don’t bother to look at your accounts, but this is why you should. She’s been siphoning money ever since. The withdrawals are irregular, the amounts varied, but we both know you never take cash out of your accounts. So unless you can explain why someone keeps taking out money at ATMs that are all within a half-mile radius of her office, it’s her. I’m sorry, but she played you.”
I stared at my desk, my mind racing, desperate for a different explanation. For an answer that meant Sophie hadn’t done this.
Was there one? Or was Althea right and Sophie had played me from the start?
Suddenly a different version of events ran through my head. One where Sophie hadn’t been nearly as drunk as she’d let on in Vegas. After all, how had she walked in her high heels around that MMA ring? She tripped over her own feet when she was sober. And how had she made that long, heartfelt toast during Drake Meadows’ wedding?
Or hell, maybe the clumsy thing was all part of the act to make her seem innocent and vulnerable.
She’d been on a winning streak when I’d walked into the casino. Had she seen her chance to keep right on winning? And when I’d offered her anything she wanted to delay filing for divorce, she’d certainly taken me up on it. All the while playing cute and hard to get, knowing she was getting under my skin. Knowing she could get close and I’d be none the wiser. She’d bide her time and strike when the next opportunity presented itself.
Was that who she really was? Had I been that fucking blind?
“I’m sorry,” Althea said again, her voice soft. “I know this is a lot. Do you want me to have Oliver clear your afternoon?”