The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband – Episode 26
George’s denial emptied the room of every convenient explanation. Natalie searched his face for the familiar signs of evasion—a tightened mouth, a glance toward Lauren, the impatient frown he used whenever responsibility approached. She found fear and confusion instead. Whoever had paid the hospital bill had used her father’s name without his knowledge, and that realization made the cleared balance feel less like rescue than the opening move of an unseen game.
“Check your accounts,” Natalie said. “Maybe someone in your office arranged it.” George’s advisers shifted uneasily behind him, both men already aware that no employee could move fifty thousand dollars while the company’s finances were under emergency review.
Lauren stepped between them. “Don’t protect him. George has always found money when his old family comes calling.” Her anger struck him with the force of an accusation rehearsed over years. “Our contracts are disappearing, our credit lines are frozen, and you decide this is the moment to play devoted husband to another woman?”
“I did not pay it,” George insisted. He looked at Natalie as though she had brought the crisis into his house. “My company is being strangled. Clients are canceling without explanation, and someone is buying influence over my partners. I couldn’t release that amount now even if I wanted to.”
The admission shocked Natalie more than the insult. Lauren’s mansion, Cassie’s designer clothes, and George’s polished authority had always suggested limitless security. Now she noticed unopened letters on the entry table and the strain beneath his expensive suit. The Quinns were not poor, but their power had begun to crack.
Lauren seized on Natalie’s silence. “If you have any decency, ask your husband to help us. Sebastian may be the Klein family embarrassment, but his name must still be useful for something.”
“Don’t speak about my husband that way.” Natalie’s reply came without hesitation. Sebastian had protected her when these people traded her, listened when pride finally failed, and found them a home without demanding payment. Whatever mysteries surrounded him, he had earned more loyalty than the family asking her to exploit him.
Cassie laughed. “Loyal already? You married a criminal for hospital money.”
“And you were willing to marry him until you thought he had nothing.” Natalie set the pastry box on a side table, no longer caring whether anyone opened it. “I came here to offer thanks, not another bargain. Since Dad didn’t pay the bill, I have no reason to stay.”
George stopped her before she reached the door. “Who else knew the amount?” The question carried a businessman’s suspicion rather than a father’s concern.
Natalie considered Sarah, Daniel, hospital staff, and Sebastian. Daniel had loaned her money, but even his generosity could not explain paying the rest under George’s name. Sebastian knew everything and had promised she could rely on him, yet his supposed trust fund remained inaccessible. The idea that either man possessed fifty thousand dollars to give away seemed impossible. “Only people I trust,” she answered.
Lauren heard uncertainty. “Then one of them is lying to you.” Her satisfaction made the warning more poisonous. “Money never arrives without a price, Natalie. You should learn who paid before that person comes to collect.”
Natalie left with those words following her down the drive. She refused to let Lauren contaminate the first good news she had received in months, but unanswered questions multiplied with every step. Why use George’s name? Why hide the real payer? Most troubling of all, why had Sebastian looked unsurprised when the hospital called?
Inside the mansion, Lauren turned on George the moment the door closed. He opened his banking records and forced her to inspect every recent transaction. The hospital payment did not appear. Cassie watched their argument with growing interest, sensing that the mystery might contain a weapon more valuable than money.
“You said that federal agent keeps asking you out,” Lauren reminded her daughter. “Have him trace the transfer.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “He isn’t an agent yet. He works with financial investigations.” Her correction did not lessen Lauren’s determination.
“Then this is his chance to impress you.” Lauren lowered her voice, glancing toward George’s advisers. “Find the account that paid Natalie’s bill. If your father is hiding assets from us, I want proof. If someone else did it, I want to know what they expect from her.”
George objected that hospital records were private, but Lauren dismissed him with a look. Their marriage had never survived on trust; it survived on leverage, appearances, and mutual appetite. The company’s collapse had made each of those foundations unstable.
Cassie took a photograph of the hospital receipt Natalie had forwarded to George. She liked the idea of exposing her father, but she liked the possibility of uncovering Natalie’s secret benefactor even more. Her sister had acquired a luxury apartment, a devoted husband, and miraculous financial relief in less than two weeks. Cassie refused to believe luck favored someone she had always considered inferior.
She sent the transaction reference to her admirer with a flirtatious request for help. His reply arrived before Natalie reached the city: tracing the payment would take time, but the originating account could not stay hidden forever. Cassie smiled at the screen, unaware that the trail led not to George Quinn or Sebastian Klein, but to Daniel Walter—the public face of B.M. Enterprises and the guardian of Sebastian’s most dangerous secret.
