Chapter 6 - LAUREN’S OTHER ENGAGEMENT
Lauren arrived at Margaret's office wearing sunglasses despite the rain.
Her engagement ring was gone.
She sat across from me like a woman facing a mirror she hated.
“For the record,” she said, “I still think what you did at dinner was cruel.”
I almost laughed.
“You called me a charity case after asking me to pay for your celebration.”
“I know what I said.”
“Do you?”
Her chin trembled.
“I came because Daniel is frightening me.”
Margaret asked whether Lauren wanted independent counsel.
Lauren shook her head.
“I just want to tell Clare what happened.”
She explained that Daniel had invested money with an acquaintance who promised extraordinary returns from commercial property deals.
At first, the account statements showed profits.
Then withdrawals stopped.
Daniel had borrowed from relatives to keep investing.
Robert had introduced the acquaintance.
Patricia had encouraged the family to remain quiet.
And my father's building had become their proposed solution.
“Why was the money in Patricia's account?” I asked.
Lauren swallowed.
“Because Daniel didn't want the investment company finding out how desperate he was.”
The missing eighteen thousand had covered a mixture of engagement expenses and what Patricia called a temporary bridge payment.
Lauren opened her handbag and placed a printed message thread on the desk.
It showed Daniel demanding that she persuade me to sell the building.
Another message was worse.
If Clare refuses, Robert says we use the old guarantee.
Margaret leaned closer.
“Do you know what he meant?”
Lauren shook her head.
“But the day before the dinner, Dad asked whether I'd be willing to say Clare agreed to finance the wedding.”
“Were you?”
She looked at her empty ring finger.
“I told him yes.”
The confession hung between us.
I could have shouted.
Seven years of disrespect pressed against my throat.
Instead I asked the question that mattered.
“Are you willing to tell the truth now?”
Lauren began crying harder.
“My fiancé found out I'd been lying about the deposits.”
She had told him their families had covered everything.
In reality, multiple invoices were overdue.
He had postponed the wedding.
Then Daniel threatened to reveal private messages Lauren had exchanged with the promoter of the failed investment.
Those messages suggested she had recruited friends by repeating claims she had not verified.
“Daniel says if I sign a statement that you promised to pay, he'll keep everything quiet.”
Margaret told her not to sign anything she believed false.
She also explained that a lawyer representing me could not protect Lauren's separate interests.
For the first time, Lauren looked at me without contempt.
“Did Dad really leave you that building because he didn't trust us?”
“He left it because he loved me,” I said.
“That should have been enough.”
When Lauren left, she promised to preserve her messages and consult her own attorney.
I thought the conversation had ended.
But at the elevator, she turned back.
“Clare, there is something I haven't told anyone.”
I waited.
“Daniel isn't the only person who signed your name.”
“Who else?”
Lauren swallowed.
May you like
“I watched Mom do it.”
