Chapter 5 - The Whisper
After dinner, guests moved into the drawing room for champagne and music.
Anna searched for Mark.
She found his empty glass near the fireplace, but he was gone. Jessica had disappeared too.
Anna crossed the hallway toward her father’s old study. Before she reached it, she heard voices from the smaller sitting room.
She stopped behind the partly open doorway.
Jessica stood beside the Christmas tree, one hand resting on her pregnant belly. Mark was so close to her that their shoulders nearly touched.
“You said you’d tell her tonight,” Jessica whispered.
“Not with the board members here.”
“You promised we’d be together before the baby arrives.”
“We will.”
Mark glanced toward the hallway.
Then he placed his hand near her belly.
“It’s our baby. After Christmas, I’ll leave Anna.”
Anna’s fingers tightened around the doorframe.
The room tilted.
She wanted to burst through the doorway. She wanted to demand an explanation, throw Mark out, and tell every guest exactly what he had done.
But her body refused to move.
Jessica looked up and saw her.
“Mark,” she whispered. “She heard you.”
Mark turned.
The panic on his face lasted less than a second before calculation replaced it.
“Anna, this isn’t what you think.”
Before she could answer, James entered carrying his leather case.
He placed it on the dining table and opened it.
Inside were the bundles of cash.
May you like
“Two hundred thousand dollars,” he said. “Don’t divorce him yet.”
That was when Christmas Eve stopped being a celebration and became a reckoning.
