I Don’t Read Between The Lines, I Only Tell The Truth Outright Chapter 08

I Don’t Read Between The Lines, I Only Tell The Truth Outright Chapter 08

That evening, Daphne came to my office. The front desk said she had been waiting downstairs for two hours.

When I came down, she was sitting in a corner of the lobby with no parents and no brothers around her. She stood up.

“Nora, can we talk?”

“If it’s about work, call our legal team.”

“It’s about home.”

I checked the time. “Ten minutes.”

She followed me to the coffee shop on the ground floor. Once we sat down, she took the locket off and

pushed it across the table.

“It’s yours.”

“This has nothing to do with the audit.”

“I know.” She pressed her lips together. “I wanted you to know that I never set out to take your things.”

I looked at her. “Then why did you never give any of them back?”

She had nothing to say, so I kept going.

“At the dinner, you knew that was my seat.”

“I knew.”

“At the records office, you knew everyone would leave because of you.”

“I knew.”

“When they cleared out your room, did you actually have an attack?”

Her fingers twitched. “I have an anxiety disorder.”

“I asked about that day.”

She stared at the table for a long time before she answered. “No.”

She finally said it out loud, and it didn’t surprise me at all.

She spoke quietly. “I was scared. After you came back, they kept saying nothing would change. But your name goes on the records, the room goes back to you, and the locket goes back to you. What comes after

that? Am I the next thing that goes?”

“So you let them walk out on me over and over?”

“I never made them do anything.” Her head came up. “All I have to do is hurt a little, and they pick me.”

“That’s their choice,” she said.

I nodded. “It is.”

That threw her. “You aren’t going to tear into me?”

“I’ll hold you to what you did. What they did isn’t all on you.”

Her eyes went red. “Nora, I’ll pay the foundation back. Can you keep it out of the report?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because the signature that got forged was mine.”

I pushed the locket back to her. “Hold on to this for now.”

Something like relief flickered across her face. “You don’t want it?”

“I do. You give it back after you’ve explained everything.”

Her face fell again.

Right then, a cup came down hard on a table behind us. My mother was standing in the next booth, and Adrian and Miles were with her. They had followed Daphne the whole way because they were afraid something would happen to her.

My mother looked at her, and her voice shook. “You didn’t have an attack that day?”

Daphne panicked. “Mom, let me explain.”

“What about the day at the records office?”

“I couldn’t catch my breath.”

Miles spoke up. “I examined you. 30 minutes after we got home, you were drinking an iced coffee. I told myself you had come out of it.”

Daphne reached for my mother, crying, and my mother stepped back.

It was the first time she hadn’t put herself in front of Daphne.

Adrian’s face went grim. “So for three years, every time Nora had something important, you made a scene on purpose?”

“Not every time!” Daphne screamed it. “I was scared you’d stop wanting me!”

Eli came in from the hallway, and he had heard all of it. “And Nora? She deserved to get left behind over and

over?

Daphne was crying too hard to answer.

I stood up. “Don’t put all of it on her.”

All of them turned to me at once, and I pointed at them.

‘She cries, and you leave. She’s sick, and you take her side. She never had to ask, and not one of you ever

thought to stay behind with me. She took advantage of your favoritism, but the favoritism belongs to you.”

The coffee shop had gone completely quiet.

My mother covered her mouth, and the tears came.

I picked up my bag. “That’s ten minutes. The money clears by 5 p.m. tomorrow.”