Allison Price didn't ask to meet at my home.
She asked to meet Claire Bennett.
That gave me a little confidence.
The next morning, with her own attorney present, Allison arrived carrying a sealed document envelope.
She was in her early forties, dressed in a simple gray jacket.
She looked tired enough that I wondered whether she'd slept at all.
We sat around Claire's conference table.
Allison's attorney explained that she was providing information relevant to a potential contract dispute.
Nobody promised confidentiality beyond what could legally be offered.
Nobody suggested a dramatic bargain.
Then Allison laid out the papers.
The first authorization was the one Parkhurst had supplied.
The second was an earlier draft stored in Ellison & Price's internal contract archive.
It included the same company name and date.
But the signature line was blank.
Across the top, someone had typed: Awaiting approval from Laurel.
"Where did this come from?" Claire asked.
Allison pointed to the records reference.
"Our shared project folder. I had an IT contractor preserve a copy after we received your attorney's inquiry."
"Who completed the version sent to the retailer?"
"I don't know," Allison said. "That's why I'm here."
She opened a third document.
It was a meeting note from March.
Graham had written that the project would proceed under family authorization.
He'd promised to obtain my signature.
No later approval was documented in that note.
Allison looked at me.
"I should have asked to speak with you directly."
"Why didn't you?"
"Graham said you hated dealing with commercial details."
My hands went cold.
"What else did he say?"
"That you wanted to remain a designer and let him manage business opportunities."
It was almost funny.
I had spent years negotiating supplier prices and reviewing customer contracts.
The company existed because I liked business details.
But people who knew Graham professionally had heard a different story.
Claire asked whether Allison had shared the materials with her company's other leadership.
"Yes. Our compliance adviser has them. We've paused new projects involving that customer while we review the records."
"Was the invoice paid?"
"Yes. The display fixtures were delivered. We did real work. The problem is the brand authorization Graham represented as complete."
That distinction mattered.
Ellison & Price hadn't necessarily billed for imaginary work.
Its technicians had fabricated stands and signs.
The dispute involved permission to use my photographs and brand in the design, and who claimed to have that permission.
When the meeting ended, Allison lingered at the door.
"I admired your work," she said. "The samples looked better than the mockups. I wish I'd come to you first."
I considered telling her what her partner had been like at home.
It wouldn't help the evidence.
"You can come to the workshop someday," I said. "After this is resolved."
She nodded.
Outside, rain had started.
I stood beneath the office awning while Claire joined me.
"We have more information," she said. "We still don't have every answer."
"I want him to admit it."
"He may never admit anything."
I watched a bus pull away from the curb.
"I spent twelve years waiting for him to acknowledge what he'd done."
"Then don't make your recovery depend on his confession."
The day after Allison's visit, I spent an hour with our bookkeeper reviewing how we archived customer permissions.
Morrow was careful with its own designs.
That didn't mean our systems were perfect.
We used outside photographers for some product shoots and contracted illustrators for packaging.
Each agreement needed to say who could use the resulting work and for what purpose.
I asked our bookkeeper to find the older contracts that hadn't been collected in one place.
By noon, we'd identified three missing countersigned copies.
None involved Parkhurst or Ellison & Price.
Still, we contacted the vendors and completed the records.
I wanted the investigation to make our company better, not merely angrier.
Nina suggested a checklist requiring every new commercial collaboration to go through one designated approval channel.
"What if a buyer calls you directly?" she asked.
"I'll send the request to the same channel."
"Even if it's somebody famous?"
"Especially then."
We added a requirement to confirm rights to photographs, logos, product names, and display materials.
We assigned responsibility for keeping the final signed version.
Owen complained that paperwork was spreading faster than leather scraps.
"It's possible," I told him. "But unlike leather scraps, we can search paperwork later."
He conceded the point with a smile.
That afternoon, a package arrived from a customer in Virginia.
Inside was a small notebook she'd made with leftover leather scraps from an old repair workshop.
She wrote that she'd followed Morrow's early tutorials and eventually learned to make her own wallets.
The seams were uneven.
The cover was sturdy.
I turned every page carefully.
I sent a handwritten thank-you explaining what I liked about the construction.
Then I placed the notebook on my shelf.
Graham had always said the tutorials were a waste of time because people might learn to make their own bags.
I'd believed the opposite.
Teaching a skill could create respect for the work behind it.
The notebook was proof that our customers felt connected to the process.
On Friday evening, I drove past the building where Graham and I had lived.
It wasn't intentional.
The main road was closed, and traffic had been diverted.
I recognized the turn before I could stop myself from looking.
The driveway was freshly paved.
A new family bicycle leaned beside the steps.
I felt a pang of grief for the life I'd imagined there.
Then the light changed.
I drove on.
The house had held happy afternoons as well as painful ones.
It didn't need to become a symbol of everything wrong in my life.
The next morning, Priya asked me to help choose plants for her balcony.
We visited a garden center and argued cheerfully about rosemary and lavender.
She wanted flowers that would tolerate shade.
I wanted her to check how much sunlight the balcony actually received.
"You sound like you're inspecting a production line," she said.
"Plants have specifications too."
She laughed and bought both.
We stopped for lunch afterward.
I told her about the document review without sharing privileged details.
She asked whether I was afraid of seeing Graham again.
"Sometimes," I admitted. "But I'm more afraid of going back to the version of myself who always apologized first."
"Then don't go back."
"I'm trying."
She reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
We finished our lunch and talked about an upcoming art exhibition.
I was grateful that she knew when to change the subject.
Back home, I checked the repaired clasp again.
Owen had marked a tiny date beneath the hinge.
I opened and closed it slowly.
The movement was smooth.
It had taken effort, patience, and careful adjustment.
I didn't mistake that for proof that every damaged relationship could be repaired.
But it reminded me that good work sometimes meant knowing exactly what could be fixed.
The workshop was busy when I arrived.
Owen had moved half the cutting tables to make room for the new production layout.
Nina was reviewing boxes of hardware with a supplier representative.
A hand-lettered calendar covered the wall.
The first trial shipment date was circled in blue.
I joined the planning meeting.
We discussed hiring.
Quality control.
Returns.
A possible shortage of one particular leather finish.
The work was less glamorous than the launch photographs, but more satisfying.
At lunchtime, Nina showed me the candidate list for two new positions.
One applicant had excellent sewing experience but no luxury-goods background.
Another had merchandising experience but needed training on industrial machines.
"I want both interviewed," I said.
"We only budgeted for one immediate hire."
"Interviewing doesn't commit us to two. We should understand the options."
Nina nodded and wrote a note.
Then she hesitated.
"My sister sent me a video from the galleria."
I stopped.
"What video?"
A shopper had recorded the moment Graham grabbed my wrist.
The clip was short and shaky.
It showed me telling him to let go.
Then the guards approaching.
A few online comments celebrated his humiliation.
Others speculated about our divorce and the business's value.
I hated seeing myself reduced to a spectacle.
"Don't share it," I said.
"I wasn't going to."
"Ask staff not to comment on it publicly. They can talk to the press only about their own work, and never under pressure."
"I'll remind everyone."
I called Marcus and asked whether the public video changed anything about the incident report.
He said their evidence preservation was separate and that a customer recording did not replace their internal documentation.
I thanked him.
That afternoon, a local reporter requested an interview about the confrontation.
I declined.
She asked whether my ex-husband was attempting to claim my business.
I told her our legal matters were private and that the day's announcement concerned our workers and customers.
She seemed disappointed.
I didn't owe anyone a public trial of my marriage.
In the evening, I found a photograph from our ninth anniversary.
Graham stood beside me at a restaurant, smiling broadly.
I'd worn a dark green dress.
Under the table, my phone had been buzzing with questions about a delayed shipment.
I remembered asking Graham to excuse me for ten minutes.
He'd said I cared more about a handbag than about him.
I had apologized.
Now I could remember the whole night more clearly.
He'd spent forty minutes taking calls from his own clients before dinner.
I hadn't complained.
It wasn't the business that bothered him.
It was the fact that I had one.
My phone vibrated.
A text from Graham.
Allison is betraying me. You always turn people against me.
I saved it.
A second text arrived.
You don't understand what she's done to our company.
I wondered whether he meant the fabrication shop, the disputed invoice, or simply the fact that he'd lost control of the story.
Claire advised me not to answer.
The next day, Allison's attorney supplied confirmation that Ellison & Price had opened its own internal review.
Its leadership intended to check whether any other customer projects involved similar unsupported approvals.
I felt a sharp urge to search Graham's old emails from our marriage.
Then I stopped.
I would use the records I lawfully possessed and let the professionals request anything else through appropriate channels.
Revenge had never kept the lights on at Morrow.
Careful work had.
Before leaving, Nina handed me a small box.
Inside was a repaired version of my first brass clasp.
Owen had polished the rough edge and adjusted the spring.
"For the founder's display," she said.
I opened and closed it.
For once, it worked smoothly.
"Tell Owen thank you."
"He said not to thank him until it survives a hundred cycles."
I laughed.
Later that evening, Claire called with an unexpected update.
Graham had withdrawn his informal demand for immediate access to my current accounts.
But his lawyer still wanted to discuss the divorce disclosures.
"Why?" I asked.
"He says the retail arrangement was far more advanced before the settlement than he understood."
"It wasn't signed."
"We have the dated drafts and correspondence. We'll answer with evidence."
She paused.
"Laurel, I also need to tell you something. An old email surfaced in the settlement file. Graham received the draft valuation before he signed. He replied that he didn't want the company, even if it became valuable."
I sank into a chair.
"He wrote that?"
"Yes. And there's more. He asked his attorney to keep the division simple so he could move on quickly with Brielle."
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The Divorce Files Showed Graham Exactly What He Had Chosen to Ignore
The Security Guards Recognized Me Before My Former Husband Understood Why I Had Come
Part 4 of 12
