Chapter 11 - The second woman in the financial story
Melissa was not paid through the fake vendors.
I initially assumed she was.
Wrong.
She had her own consulting business.
Daniel did arrange for Bennett Meridian to hire her firm for a legitimate marketing project worth $18,500.
The work was real.
Deliverables existed.
Market rate.
Embarrassing conflict.
Not automatically fraud.
The more serious problem involved hotel reimbursements.
Daniel submitted corporate expenses for trips where business ended one or two days before he did.
He charged rooms.
Meals.
Transportation.
Some involving Melissa.
The unsupported personal-travel portion totaled around $23,700 over eighteen months.
Significant.
Not the entire scheme.
That distinction helped me emotionally.
The affair had felt like the center of everything.
Financially, it was not.
My marriage had two separate wounds:
Daniel betrayed me sexually.
Daniel abused his position financially.
May you like
Sometimes they overlapped.
Neither existed solely to explain the other.
