The filing had gone through first. The attempt failed.
Melissa from the company reached out to her attorney that same week. The investigation had confirmed months of fraudulent expense claims. Andrew had used corporate accounts to pay for accommodation, gifts, transportation, meals, and the staging costs for an apartment across the city.
The apartment in the investigator’s photographs was not Vanessa’s.
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It was Andrew’s.
A second life, half-furnished, quietly funded over months while Claire sat at their kitchen table discussing health insurance and whether they could begin fertility treatments before the summer.
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When she learned the full extent of it, she did not collapse.
She went numb first. Then she became very calm.
Where Things Stood Three Months Later
Vanessa left Daniel and stayed temporarily with family. Daniel later told Claire that Vanessa had genuinely believed Andrew was separated and building a future with her. Claire did not forgive her. But she understood enough to recognize that Andrew had built two completely separate and false realities for two different people and financed the entire arrangement with money that did not belong to him.
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