Page 114 of Runaway Bride's Guide to Love

“Not funny,” Simon says harshly at Stella’s attempt to lighten the mood. “That was all Ainsley.”

“Hey!” she exclaims.

“Enough,” William says, clearly not a fan of his children’s jokes. “The charges are serious. According to the SEC and the AG, Stella bought and sold ten million dollars’ worth of stocks based on the knowledge of clients at the law firm. They have years of evidence.”

“Years?” Maeve repeats. “Stella, and no offense, do you even know what insider trading is?”

“Only what I know from the dumb training videos we have to watch every year,” she says. “And even then I’m confused. Stocks? Not my thing. I have to use a tip calculator on my cell phone. You think I understand stocks?”

“That’s what I thought,” Maeve continues. “So how does the federal government think that you, a woman who would only buy stock in Steve Madden, would be doing millions of dollars of insider trading?”

“And that’s exactly what the attorney general wanted to know,” William says. “Apparently stocks involving companies that the firm represents have been on the radar for a while. Fishy buying and selling activity, but nothing that popped out. That was until the last year, when heavy buys and sells were happening and the only common denominator was that our lawfirm represented all of them. Investigators started digging, and when they looked inside, every one of the companies had meetings with us that would’ve detailed pertinent information about their finances. And that after all of those meetings happened, the files were accessed by Stella.”

Audible gasps fill the room.

“We have individual logins for everything at the firm,” Stella said. “It’s supposed to help with security and tracing things back to people when shit hits the fan.”

“But you didn’t do it,” Ainsley says. “I mean…you didn’t, right?”

“Of course not. And that’s what I told the investigators,” Stella says. “The only problem with that is they don’t believe me, since money that was used to buy and sell these stocks has been moving through a bank account with my name on it.”

“What?” I wasn’t ready for that bombshell. “You had a bank account, and you didn’t notice money moving in and out?”

She shakes her head. “No. And that’s because I thought that bank account was closed.”

“I’m confused,” Maeve says. “How do you not know about a bank account?”

“Because I thought my former fiancé closed it.”

Fucking Duncan. Of course this has to do with him.

“I’m going to kill him,” I growl as I start to stand up. Stella’s hand on my thigh quickly stops me.

“Not yet. Because we can’t tie it to him if he’s dead. Then I go to jail, and I’m sorry, but orange is not in my color wheel.”

She’s right. I can’t kill him.

Yet.

“When the investigators asked me about the checking account I had, I told them about my personal ones and the one that Duncan and I had for the wedding,” Stella says. “We did talk a little about the money he took before the wedding, and how he changed my password and alert settings. Then they asked me about a second joint account with Duncan andhonestly, I had to think back because I completely forgot about it. We opened it right when we got engaged, but it was hacked within the first week. I told him to close it immediately since it was at his bank. He was hesitant, but eventually agreed. Or so I thought. I signed a paper and everything granting permission to close it.”

I watch as Stella’s shoulders slump and she hangs her head.

“Hey,” I bring her hand up to my lips to give them a reassuring kiss. “You asked the man you were going to marry to do something, and you trusted him to do it. This is not your fault.”

“And that’s what we told the investigators,” William says. “Apparently, the account not only stayed open, but Duncan changed it to Stella as the main, and only, person on the account. That’s the document she signed. And with that, he laundered millions through it.”

“And let me guess,” Simon interjects. “He was using Stella’s log-in at the firm to access every client’s file because, as the office administrator, she has access to everyone’s files, which he wouldn’t since he’s a lower-level associate.”

“That’s our theory,” William says.

“Oh, Stella,” Maeve says. “He knew your passwords?”

Stella shakes her head. “I didn’t think he did. But then again, I use the same three passwords. And before you say anything, no, I don’t use the strong password suggestion because it’s never remembered. And I didn’t mean for Duncan to know the password. He figured it out, I guess.”

“That’s neither here nor there,” I say, defending Stella. “We’re here now. Does her being with us mean they are dropping the charges and going after Duncan?”

Stella sinks into my embrace as William shakes his head. “They let Stella go because they are still deciding the charges, and she’s not under criminal arrest. Yet. They agreed to look into Duncan, but he did a pretty good job on the surface of staying clean on this and pinning it all on Stella.”

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