The restaurant manager stopped beside my chair just as I opened the black leather folder.
Grant was still standing with his champagne glass in one hand, but the confident smile he had worn through his entire toast had disappeared.
Sloane looked from him to me.
“What is that?” she asked again.
I didn’t answer her.
I looked at the manager instead.
“Would you confirm whose name is on the private dining contract?”
Grant set his glass down too quickly.
A little champagne jumped over the rim.
“Clara, don’t drag the staff into a family issue.”
The manager didn’t move.
I had spoken with him before the dinner.
I had asked him for one thing: if the seating arrangements were changed without my authorization, I wanted the original event documents preserved.
He opened the contract.
“The room was reserved by Mrs.
Clara Whitman,” he said.
“She is the contracting host for tonight’s event.”
Nobody moved.
I glanced at the cream place card lying beside my plate.
Former Wife.
“And who authorized the seating changes?” I asked.
The manager hesitated only long enough to be precise.
“Not Mrs.
Whitman.”
Sloane’s face tightened.
Grant stared at the manager.
“This is ridiculous.
It’s a place card.”
“Exactly,” I said.
“A place card.
Yet apparently important enough for someone to rewrite mine and move my chair.”
I turned toward Sloane.
She lifted her chin.
“Grant told me the seating needed to reflect the new situation.”
There it was.
Not an apology.
Not embarrassment.
Confidence.
She still believed the only secret in the room was that she had replaced me.
Grant rubbed his jaw.
“Can we stop? Everybody here understands what is happening.”
One of the board members lowered the wine list.
“I’m beginning to think we don’t,” he said.
Grant shot him a look.
I pulled the first document from the folder.
“Neither did I, at first.”
It was a copy of an expense report.
I slid it toward the center of the table.
Grant’s eyes dropped to it.
Sloane stopped smiling.
“For months,” I said, “I wondered why certain company expenses didn’t make sense.
Hotels on weekends.
Luxury purchases described as client entertainment.
Travel charges on dates when no client meetings appeared on the calendar.”
Grant gave a short laugh.
“You’re reviewing corporate expenses now?”
