Chapter 16 #2
“He did not submit a reimbursement to me.” Robert wrote the date and amount on his legal pad. “That does not mean he failed to repay it, but it means I need our controller to review the account.”
Julia turned from the sink. “Robert, are you talking about the business now?”
“I’m talking about company funds.” He kept his voice calm as he wrote down a second date. “An affair is a private failure. Charging rooms and gifts to a business account creates a separate problem.”
“The gifts too?” Abby asked as she reopened the photograph folder. “There was a bracelet delivered to Makayla’s office. The receipt shows the same last four digits.”
Robert held out his hand for the laptop. “Show me.”
Abby found the receipt beside a photograph Makayla had sent Hudson after opening the package. The bracelet lay across her wrist above a message thanking him for making her feel chosen.
“This was entered as a client-development expense,” Robert said after checking the date against something on his phone. “Hudson told accounting it was purchased for an investor.”
Julia returned to the table and lowered herself into her chair. “How can you know that from one receipt?”
“Because I approved the expense.” Robert placed his phone beside the legal pad. “He used my authorization to pay for a gift to Makayla.”
The anger in his voice remained controlled, but Abby had known Robert long enough to recognize it. He had spent decades protecting the Covington name, and Hudson had relied on that trust to conceal more than infidelity.
“There are other receipts,” Abby said. “I don’t know which accounts he used, but Evan preserved everything he found.”
“Send them to me and our outside counsel.” Robert wrote an email address on the top sheet of the pad, then stopped. “Only if your attorney agrees. I do not want you compromising anything you may need later.”
“I’ll ask her first.” Abby closed the financial folder. “I didn’t come here to damage the company. I wanted you to understand why I left.”
Robert met her eyes. “You are not responsible for damage caused by truthful records of Hudson’s conduct.”
Julia flinched at the bluntness. “We still haven’t heard his explanation for the accounts.”
Robert turned toward his wife. “We heard his explanation for the affair, and the records show that it was false.”
“I know what the records show.” Julia pressed a hand against her chest. “I’m trying to understand how our son could maintain this for eighteen months and come home to Abby as if nothing had happened.”
Abby looked at the covered dish cooling on the counter. The same question had occupied her for weeks, though the evidence suggested Hudson had not experienced the division the way everyone else did.
“He wanted both relationships,” she said. “I gave him a home his family approved of, and Makayla made him feel admired without asking him to be accountable. He didn’t think he should have to give up either one.”
Julia’s eyes filled. “Did he tell you that?”
“Not in those words.” Abby reopened the folder containing Hudson’s messages after the hotel confrontation. “He kept telling me the affair didn’t change what we had. He thought I should judge our relationship separately from what he did with her.”
Robert read the first message, then moved to the next. Hudson alternated between apologies, accusations, and plans for Abby’s return, often within the same day.
One message accused Abby of humiliating him by canceling the venue before he could speak to the coordinator. The next promised a honeymoon upgrade if she stopped allowing Evan to influence her.
Julia wiped beneath one eye. “He told us you had become attached to Evan before he and Makayla got close. He said that was why you refused to work through it.”
Abby’s stomach tightened. “Evan brought me proof because he knew I was about to marry someone who had been lying to me. We have become friends since then, but nothing happened before the affair was discovered or after it.”
“I believe you,” Robert said as he pushed the laptop back toward her. “Hudson needed another explanation for why you would leave him, because your stated reason required him to accept responsibility.”
Julia looked between them. “I didn’t say I believed Hudson. I’m telling Abby what he said.”
“You repeated his version to me the morning after I learned I was pregnant.” Abby kept her voice quiet. “You asked me to reconsider the engagement before asking whether his account was true.”
Julia’s face folded. “I thought I was protecting your family.”
“You were protecting the future you wanted us to have.” Abby closed the laptop. “I wanted that future too, but it depended on a man Hudson chose not to be.”
The room remained silent except for the refrigerator motor and the faint scrape of branches against the kitchen window. Julia looked toward the three place settings as if she had forgotten why she arranged them.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “I should have asked you what happened before I decided what could be repaired.”
Abby felt the familiar urge to reduce Julia’s guilt before it became uncomfortable. She placed both hands around her water glass and waited until the impulse passed.
“Thank you,” she said. “I needed you to hear me.”
Robert closed the legal pad. “We hear you now. I cannot tell you what decisions we will make until I review the accounts and speak with counsel, but Hudson will not use this family or the company to pressure you.”
Julia looked at him sharply. “What does that mean?”
“It means he will not send gifts through the company, use an employee to investigate Abby, or charge expenses intended to influence her.” Robert turned back to Abby. “Has anyone from the company contacted you on his behalf?”
“His assistant called about returning some things from the apartment.” Abby remembered the careful discomfort in the woman’s voice. “I told her to arrange it through Sadie.”
Robert wrote the assistant’s name on the pad. “She will be instructed not to contact you again unless you initiate it.”
“I don’t want her punished,” Abby said. “She sounded as if Hudson told her it was part of her job.”
“Then the instruction protects her too.” Robert replaced the cap on his pen. “Hudson has confused personal service with employment for years, and we allowed it because correcting him was usually more difficult than accommodating him.”
Julia lowered her gaze.
Abby recognized the look because she had made her own version of it in Sadie’s guest room.
They finally served dinner, though none of them ate much. The conversation moved to the pregnancy only after Julia asked whether Abby wanted to discuss it.