“What?” she said. “What are you talking about?”
“And,” Daniel said, just as calmly, “we are not dating.”
The crack in her expression was almost audible.
He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his tablet, and nodded toward the television mounted above the fireplace. “I think your family should see something.”
He connected the device with the ease of someone who had rehearsed the movement, because he had. The screen lit. Then came file logs. Timestamps. Download trails. Metadata. Financial transfers. Side-by-side slides showing my original concept deck and Chloe’s stolen version. Slack messages. Internal access records. Consulting fees deposited into her personal account.
Gasps rippled around the room.
My father stared like the television had become an enemy. Tina gripped the back of a dining chair so hard her knuckles whitened. Mason, old enough by then to understand humiliation but not yet practiced at disguising shock, whispered, “No way.”
Chloe’s face went blotchy crimson.
“This is ridiculous,” she snapped. “This is out of context.”
Daniel didn’t look at her. He looked at the room.