Chapter 5 - The Signature I Never Made
The document carried my full legal name.
Emily Grace Bennett.
My date of birth was correct.
My old address was correct.
Even the shape of the signature looked almost like mine.
Almost.
I enlarged the screen.
“I didn’t sign this.”
Lucas looked over my shoulder.
“What loan?”
Alexander answered.
“A commercial loan.”
“For what?”
Rebecca had already forwarded the supporting documents.
The borrower was Bennett Development Group.
Lucas’s company.
The original loan had been eight hundred thousand dollars.
My trust had been used as collateral.
I stared at my brother.
“Did you know?”
His face went white.
“No.”
My mother moved toward the door again.
Alexander did not stop her.
I did.
“Mom.”
She kept walking.
I stepped in front of her.
“Did you forge my signature?”
Her eyes met mine.
For one second, I saw the answer.
Then it disappeared behind anger.
“You have no idea how complicated business documents are.”
“That was not my question.”
Lucas stood.
“Mom, did you put Emily on my loan?”
“I saved your company.”
“You told me Dad guaranteed it.”
My father shook his head.
“I never did.”
Lucas stared at our mother.
Something inside him seemed to collapse.
My mother pointed at me.
“Look at her.”
“She has everything.”
“A billionaire husband.”
“Designer clothes.”
“Probably houses she hasn’t bothered telling us about.”
“And you are all standing here pretending I stole food from a starving child.”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing.
“You did this before I met Alexander.”
She stopped.
That mattered.
The loan application was dated almost three years earlier.
Long before Alexander entered my life.
Long before anyone could pretend my wealth through marriage somehow excused what they had done.
Aunt Marlene suddenly placed her glass down.
Too carefully.
Alexander noticed.
“So who witnessed the signature?”
Everyone turned toward her.
She froze.
I opened the document.
At the bottom was the notary information.
Marlene Cooper.
My aunt.
My mother’s sister.
I looked at her.
“You notarized it.”
She shook her head too quickly.
“I notarized hundreds of papers back then.”
“Did you watch me sign this one?”
Her lips parted.
No sound came out.
I stepped closer.
“You spent my whole life laughing at me.”
“You called me desperate.”
“You told me nobody would want me.”
“And while you were doing that, you were helping my mother take money from an account with my name on it.”
Marlene’s eyes filled.
“Emily, it wasn’t supposed to hurt you.”
That sentence finally broke something open inside me.
I stopped feeling ashamed.
I stopped feeling small.
I stopped wondering what I had done to deserve their contempt.
Alexander stood beside me.
I could feel his presence without needing him to rescue me.
I looked at Aunt Marlene.
“Then tell me what it was supposed to do.”
She looked at my mother.
My mother gave the smallest shake of her head.
Marlene saw it.
Then she started crying.
“Catherine said Emily would never find out.”
My father dropped into a chair.
Lucas cursed quietly.
Marlene covered her mouth.
“She said everything would be replaced before Emily turned twenty-five.”
I asked the question nobody else seemed willing to ask.
“Replaced with what?”
Marlene looked at Lucas.
His face changed.
Because suddenly he knew.
May you like
“With money from Lucas’s company.”
And Lucas’s company was nearly bankrupt.
