Chapter 15 - The TableMarcus sat opposite them.
Leonard, his attorney, sat beside him.
Danielle represented Simone.
Darius represented Bennett Hospitality.
Ashley technically attended on the company’s behalf.
No one discussed love at first.
They discussed numbers.
$14,400 collected from Simone as supposed rent contribution.
$42,800 routed through her altered vendor profile.
$7,800 mixer purchased with Bennett funds.
$72,300 identified direct company loss.
Estate loan balance: $109,650 plus contractual interest.
Marcus’s available assets were insufficient.
The warehouse had equity, but not enough to cover everything.
Reed Development had little cash.
Marcus’s retirement account had restrictions.
His vehicle had a loan.
Leonard proposed asset liquidation and structured repayment.
Ashley listened.
Simone listened.
Marcus barely looked at either woman.
Finally Danielle asked about the $25,000 transfer.
Leonard said, “My client intended restitution to Ms. Carter.”
“With potentially disputed funds,” Danielle replied.
Marcus spoke.
“It was mine.”
Darius said, “Tracing is incomplete.”
“It came from a personal brokerage account.”
“That account received Reed Development transfers.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
The process made everything harder than simply giving money back.
That was the reality of contaminated finances.
Simone finally spoke.
“Why did you charge me rent?”
Marcus looked at her.
It was the first personal question.
“I needed cash.”
“You were already taking money through the vendor profile.”
“I know.”
“So why take mine too?”
His eyes filled.
“I told myself you were paying what you would have paid anyway.”
Simone stared.
“That was your logic?”
“Yes.”
“And Bennett was paying the apartment.”
“Yes.”
“So I paid you sixteen hundred a month to live in an apartment another woman’s family funded.”
Marcus flinched.
“I didn’t think of it that way.”
“That is the problem.”
She pulled out the ownership proposal.
“You really planned to give me fifty-one percent?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the building was supposed to become yours.”
“With stolen money.”
“Temporary money.”
Simone laughed.
“There is no such thing as temporary theft.”
Leonard began to object.
Marcus raised a hand.
“She’s right.”
The room became quiet.
It was the first time Simone heard him say it without qualification.
Ashley opened the wedding ledger.
“Why did you inflate the cake invoice?”
Marcus looked ashamed.
“Needed another seven thousand before the loan review.”
“Did you choose Simone as the baker for our wedding?”
“Yes.”
Simone stared.
Ashley asked, “Why?”
Marcus swallowed.
“Her work is the best.”
Ashley’s expression twisted.
“That’s almost obscene.”
“I know.”
“You knowingly hired your girlfriend to make our wedding cake.”
“Yes.”
“Did you think she would deliver it?”
“No.”
“How did you know?”
“She told me Keisha usually handled Saturday deliveries for large weddings.”
Simone remembered.
Marcus had casually asked months earlier.
You still make Keisha do those stressful ballroom setups?
She had laughed.
Another innocent conversation harvested for logistics.
“What changed?” Ashley asked.
Simone answered.
“Keisha’s daughter got sick.”
Marcus looked at Keisha’s name as if a random fever had destroyed his entire architecture.
In a sense, it had.
Ashley leaned forward.
“If Simone had not delivered that cake, would you have married me?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Simone felt the answer physically.
Ashley continued.
“And Sunday?”
“We would have left for the resort.”
“Monday?”
“The refinance.”
“Yes.”
“Tuesday?”
Marcus said nothing.
“And Simone?”
“I was going to tell her I needed space.”
Simone stared.
“Space.”
“I was going to close the building first.”
“Then what?”
“Give you the ownership documents.”
“Then break up with me.”
Marcus’s face crumpled.
“Yes.”
Simone sat back.
The cruelty had a strange internal logic.
He planned to compensate betrayal with property.
He believed a building could absorb heartbreak.
Ashley whispered, “And eventually me?”
Marcus looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
That answer hurt because it was probably the most truthful thing he had ever said.
Ashley nodded.
“Thank you.”
Marcus blinked.
“For what?”
“For finally not inventing a future.”
The mediator called a break.
In the hallway Simone stood beside Ashley.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then Ashley said, “He was going to give you a building.”
“Half a building.”
“Fifty-one percent.”
“Please don’t make it romantic.”
Ashley almost smiled.
“I wasn’t.”
Simone looked at her.
“He was going to give you marriage.”
Ashley stared toward the closed conference-room door.
“No.”
She shook her head.
“He was going to give me paperwork too.”
And that was when they both understood Marcus’s deepest mistake.
He had treated commitment as something that could be manufactured through documents.
A lease.
A deed.
A marriage license.
An ownership percentage.
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He had built legal structures everywhere.
And destroyed trust underneath them.
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