My Fiancée Thought I Was the Car Cleaner

PART 2 - THE SIGNATURE ON THE APPLICATION

We moved into a private office.

Natalie sat across from me while Lorraine remained standing.

"It's only paperwork," Lorraine said. "You're going to be married."

"The application requests four hundred and eighty thousand dollars in my name."

Natalie reached for my hand.

"Mom said it would be easier if we submitted everything before the wedding."

I moved my hand away.

"Did you upload my financial information?"

She looked at her mother.

That answered the question.

Lorraine had copied documents from my study during our engagement dinner. Natalie used them to apply for financing and requested that the car be registered in her mother's name.

The dealership's compliance system flagged the application because my signature did not match the encrypted version held by our attorneys.

"You intended me to pay for a car your mother would own."

"It was going to be a family gift," Natalie insisted.

"A gift is something the giver chooses."

Lorraine laughed coldly.

"Why are you acting like the money matters? You have hundreds of millions."

"The money isn't the problem."

I placed the engagement ring on the desk.

"The entitlement is."

Natalie's eyes filled with tears.

"You can't end our relationship over one misunderstanding."

"Would you have ended it if I really cleaned cars?"

She opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

"Your silence is the first honest answer you've given me today."

I told compliance to cancel the application.

I did not have Natalie arrested, but I preserved the documents in case Lorraine attempted to use my identity again.

When they left, Rosa Delgado, one of our senior cleaning staff, entered quietly.

She had witnessed the confrontation.

"Your father would have been proud," she said.

I looked at the blue cloth.

"He would have been disappointed that I almost married someone who thinks honest work is shameful."

Rosa hesitated.

Then she revealed that another employee had heard Lorraine's voice.

A mechanic in our restoration department.

His name was Victor Crane.

Crane was Natalie's surname.

Lorraine had told me Natalie's father abandoned them when she was a baby.

Victor carried a photograph of Natalie inside his wallet.

And he had worked for my family for fifteen years.