“Hello?”
Her voice was quiet.
“I owe you an apology.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I do.”
She took a breath.
“Mark lied to both of us.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“You don’t know everything.”
My stomach tightened.
“What else is there?”
Claire hesitated.
Then she said,
“The money wasn’t for my fertility treatment.”
I sat upright.
“What?”
“He wasn’t helping me.”
“Then why was he giving you money?”
“Because I was helping him.”
“With what?”
“With the company.”
I felt cold.
“How?”
Claire explained that months earlier, Mark had approached her with a desperate request.
He needed money.
She had sold an investment she had kept hidden from him.
Then she loaned the money to his company.
But Mark never told me.
He told Claire the business would recover.
It didn’t.
And when Claire demanded repayment, Mark began avoiding her.
That’s why she had started coming around the house.
