I don’t remember how I got there, but the next thing I knew, I was sitting at my kitchen table with the invoice in front of me.
I spread it out and looked at the account number.
It was definitely my company’s.
I opened my laptop and logged into the business bank account.
I had never really paid attention to the day-to-day transactions—Dunstan had always handled that side of things.
That was my first mistake.
I started scrolling through the statement.
There were payments to clinics, to a high-end apartment complex, to a car dealership.
All of them under the guise of “business expenses.”
And then I saw the dates.
These payments had been going on for over two years.
Two years of my husband living a double life, funded by my sweat and tears.
I felt sick.
I wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come.
Instead, a cold, hard anger settled in my chest.
I had worked too hard to let him destroy everything.
I picked up my phone and called my assistant, Vera.
“Vera,” I said when she answered.
“I need you to pull every financial record from the company for the past three years.”
“Everything?” she asked, her voice concerned.
“Everything,” I said.
“And I need it by morning.”
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“But it will be.”
I hung up and stared at the screen.
I had a long night ahead of me.
And I was just getting started.
Chapter 3 – The Paper Trail That Led Straight to His Lies
I drove home from the clinic with the invoice clenched in my hand, my knuckles white on the steering wheel.
Every time I stopped at a red light, I looked at it again, hoping the account number would somehow change.
It didn’t.
When I got inside, I locked the door and called Vera, my assistant of eleven years.
She answered on the second ring.
“Azalea?
It’s almost seven.
Are you okay?”
“Vera, I need every financial record from the company for the last three years.
Credit cards, bank statements, everything.
And I need it tonight.”
There was a pause.
“What happened?”
“I’ll explain when I see you.
Can you meet me at the office?”
“I’m already here.
I was finishing the quarterly reports.”
I drove to the office with my heart pounding.
Vera was waiting at the front desk with a worried look on her face.
She didn’t ask questions.
She just followed me into my office and closed the door.
I spread the records across my desk and started with the company credit card statements.
At first, everything looked normal.
Then I found a charge from a plastic surgery clinic for twelve thousand dollars.
My stomach dropped.
“Vera, look at this.”
She leaned over my shoulder and gasped.
“That’s not the only one,” she said quietly.
She pulled up another statement and pointed to a series of payments.
Rent for an apartment I’d never heard of.
A lease on a car.
Jewelry from a store I’d never shopped at.
All paid with the company card.
“How long has this been going on?”
I asked.
Vera scrolled through the records.
“The first charge is from two years ago.
A hotel in Miami.”
Two years.
I sat down in my chair, feeling like the floor had dropped out from under me.
Two years of lies.
Two years of thinking my marriage was solid while Dunstan was using my business to fund his affair.
“There’s more,” Vera said, her voice barely a whisper.
She opened a file on her computer and turned the screen toward me.
I saw a loan application.
A line of credit opened in the company’s name, but not by me.
“Dunstan signed for this,” I said.
“Yes.
He used his position as vice president to authorize it.”
I felt the anger rising in my chest, hot and sharp.
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“And where did that money go?”
Vera hesitated.
“Azalea, there’s something else you need to see.”
She clicked on another document, and a company name appeared on the screen.
Dunstan Designs.
“What is this?”
“It’s a company he registered six months ago.
The address is a small office downtown.
And look at the products.”
She opened a website, and I saw dresses.
My dresses.
The designs I had spent years creating, the ones I thought were safe in my studio.
“He’s selling my designs,” I whispered.
“Under his own label.
And the loan from our company is listed as start-up capital.”
I stood up and walked to the window, staring out at the city lights.
My husband had not just cheated on me.
He had stolen from me, lied to me, and was now building a business on my work.
