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The woman in the charcoal suit stopped beside the table without hesitation.
“Andrew Bennett?” she asked calmly.
My husband looked up, confused. “Yes… can I help you?”
The smile he had seconds ago didn’t fully disappear, but it tightened. Vanessa shifted in her seat, suddenly less relaxed.
“I’m Claire Donovan, internal compliance investigator for your company,” the woman said, placing a small badge on the table. “We need to speak with you and Ms. Reyes immediately.”
The restaurant noise seemed to dim around me. A few nearby diners started pretending not to listen, but no one was actually eating anymore.
Andrew let out a short laugh, uncomfortable. “This is a mistake. I think you have the wrong—”
Claire cut him off. “We’ve been monitoring company expense reports, travel logs, and security footage for six weeks. There is no mistake.”
That was when Vanessa’s expression changed. Not panic exactly—more like calculation slipping into fear.
Daniel, the stranger beside me, leaned slightly closer. “Told you,” he murmured. “It was only a matter of time.”
I still couldn’t fully process what I was seeing. My husband—my Andrew—was sitting there like his life wasn’t collapsing in real time.
Claire opened her folder.
“Andrew Bennett,” she said clearly, “you are being placed under immediate administrative suspension pending investigation into fraud, misuse of corporate funds, and unauthorized expense activity.”
The words didn’t land at first. Then they did.
Suspension.
Fraud.
Vanessa stood up quickly. “I should go,” she said, grabbing her purse.
One of the men behind Claire stepped slightly to the side, blocking her path without touching her. “Not yet,” he said.
That’s when Andrew finally stood up. “This is insane. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Claire looked at him for the first time with something colder than anger.
“We have hotel invoices charged to your corporate card in three states you never traveled to for business. We have surveillance footage of you using company funds to lease an apartment under a secondary account. And we have testimony confirming repeated policy violations involving a non-disclosed relationship with another employee’s spouse.”