The words landed slowly. “He was asking you to help him convince me to sell the company?”
“He never put it like that. He said a sale would free you from the stress. He said maybe we'd both be happier if you had money and less work.”
“Did you know about his consulting arrangement?”
She frowned. “What consulting arrangement?”
I told her what Mason had found in the proposed transaction documents. Her face tightened with a different kind of disbelief. For a moment I thought she might accuse me of inventing it, but she only shook her head.
“He said he was trying to make things easier for you.”
“Maybe part of him believed that. He also stood to make a great deal of money if I agreed.”
Natalie stared at the table. Then she said, with a bitterness I'd never heard from her before, “He told me I was the only person who understood him.”
I felt no satisfaction in seeing her discover that Ryan had been using her trust, too. It didn't undo her choices, and it didn't make us allies. I had to remind myself that she was responsible for what she'd done even if Ryan had his own reasons for participating. Still, I could recognize the pain on her face. I'd experienced a version of it when his name first appeared on her phone.
“I didn't know about the money,” she whispered.
“I believe you didn't know all of it. That doesn't change what happened between us.”
She nodded. Tears gathered in her eyes but didn't fall. “If I told you I wanted to try counseling now, would that matter?”
“It matters that you're trying to understand yourself. But I would have gone with you when you first told me you felt lost. I offered. You chose another way.”
“People come back from affairs.”
“Some do. I hope the people who choose that can find a way to trust each other again.”
“You don't think we could?”