Chapter 10 - CLAIRE'S OWN CONFLICT
Claire had done one thing badly.
Six months earlier, she learned Verity House was underperforming.
Instead of immediately recusing herself from the vendor decision because Vanessa was Ethan’s ex-wife, Claire kept supervising operational review for three weeks.
Why?
She believed she could be objective.
She probably was.
But appearances mattered.
During those weeks she wrote:
We need to get Vanessa out of the middle of this.
She meant:
out of workflow.
The cropped quote made it look personal because the full sentence came from a person who did have personal history.
Audit committee criticized Claire.
Not for fraud.
For delayed recusal.
Her annual bonus was reduced.
She hated it.
Then accepted it.
A clean victim would have been easier.
Claire was not clean.
She was still innocent of the accusation that she engineered Vanessa’s divorce or fabricated the audit.
Both things could be true:
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Claire made a governance mistake.
Vanessa weaponized it into a lie.
