Not A Trophy Wife

Chapter Seven

Evelyn retook the pile of bedclothes.

"Let me help you." I offer her, taking the load. "To where?"

"Thank you, Savi. Upstairs."

We both went up the stairs.

"I can barely keep up with everything anymore." She sighed.

"Don't you have someone to take care of the rooms?"

"I can't afford to hire anyone," she replied, unlocking one of the doors.

We went inside. She removed the dirty bedclothes, and I began to put the clean ones on. I wasn't very good at this type of work, but I tried to stretch the sheets well.

"Good thing Jayden is helping me. He doesn't ask for a penny for everything he does. I don't know how my husband handled it before. Everything has gone downhill since he passed away, and I took over full management of the motel. The expenses keep increasing. I can't understand why and what I'm not doing right..." She sat on the bed and looked at me with a desperate look. "There is no decline in work, and at the same time, I barely manage to break even."

"You know what?" I sat next to her. "I might be able to help you. Why don't you let me look over your papers? Proceeds, expenses, balances, reports—everything. We will find a way to optimize costs as much as possible."

"Can you do that?"

"I don't have experience in the field, but I have a degree in accounting and finance. I believe I can help you."

Evelyn took my hand in her palms. "But I can't pay you, Savi."

I remembered Jayden's words: "I don't think lending a hand to someone or helping them is heroic. That is normal and human."

That's not how business is done, Dominic would say, on the other hand. But human relationships are not built on material foundations—that was a truth I had recently realized the hard way.

"I don't want you to pay me, Evelyn. You gave me a big discount on the price of my room. I would love to do something for you in return."

"Thank you!"

"No need to thank me. Really."

After we finished cleaning the room, we both went downstairs again, and Evelyn gave me all the folders with the documents she had.

"That's all I have, Savi. I have no knowledge of any of this, but my husband's cousin offered to help me with the financial part after he passed away, so I got these documents from her."

"Okay," I answered her and went to my room.

I started going through the papers.

It took me many hours. But things were not looking good. In fact, they seemed very suspicious. There were no original invoices for expenses or a single original bill for electricity, water, etc. Everything was overbilled. And the amounts were unrealistically high.

"My God. This is insane," I muttered as I flipped through the documents scattered over my bed. "Someone is so obviously stealing from Evelyn." Could it be that her late husband's cousin was the culprit?

I started to feel that hateful pain again—the pain of betrayal. This time it was on someone else's behalf, but the emotion was so familiar to me.

Why do the people closest to us hurt us the most?

How was I supposed to tell Evelyn that her husband's cousin was lying to her in such a vile way?

But before I figured out how to tell her, I had to get hold of the original documents. I did not doubt that my suspicions were correct, but to accuse someone directly, I needed evidence.