I explained everything—the wedding, the contracts, the vendors being redirected. Martin listened without interrupting, one of his best qualities. When I finished, he asked quietly, “Amelia, I need you to really think about this answer. Do you trust your son?”
The question should have been simple. He was my son, my only child, the boy I’d raised. But I thought about the distance that had grown between us, the way his visits always coincided with needing something, the fact that he’d never once asked how I was coping with being a widow. “I don’t know,” I whispered.
“Send me copies of all those contracts,” Martin said gently. “Every single one. I’m going to review them. Just to be safe.”
Three days later, Martin called me back with news that made my blood run cold. I’d been overcharged by at least fifteen thousand dollars. The venue package included services I didn’t need and wouldn’t notice. The catering was inflated. And Taylor had registered a business last November called “Sophie’s Dream Events”—a wedding planning company. They’d been using Sophie’s wedding as a portfolio piece, inflating the costs, building a business on my dime while systematically cutting me out of communications.