Chương 2
Elena set the bouquet in an empty water pitcher. Several white petals fell against the desk.
She opened the envelope again.
The amendment was eleven pages long. She had seen only the first and last pages in the ballroom. Now she forced herself to read the rest.
The transfer would occur not simply upon marriage but upon registration of the marriage with the appropriate civil authority. The civil ceremony had taken place at the town hall that morning. Their signatures were already on the municipal record. The reception at the estate had been ceremonial, extravagant, and legally irrelevant.
According to the amendment, however, the transfer still required Elena’s signature.
She reached the final page again.
Julian’s name appeared beneath the title Proposed Managing Director. The signature beside it was not exactly his. It resembled the signature she had seen on cards, contracts, and the note he had left beside her coffee that morning. Yet beneath the line, in small type, were the words:
Executed on behalf of Julian Charles Mercer by Vivian Celeste Mercer, attorney-in-fact.
Elena read the phrase three times.
Celeste had not forged her son’s signature. She had signed for him.
That was not the same as Julian knowing nothing.
A knock came at the door.
Elena did not answer.
“Elena.” Julian’s voice came through the wood. “I’m not coming in.”
She held the amendment with both hands.
“I’ve asked everyone to leave this corridor,” he continued. “Your lawyer is being called. I gave my phone to Marcella. I told her she could give it to you or to counsel. I revoked nothing, deleted nothing, and called no one except the hotel to arrange rooms for my family.”
“You called your family?”
“The people who traveled with us. Not my mother.”
Elena laughed once. It came out harsh and incomplete.
He waited.
“You gave your mother power of attorney.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“And you forgot?”
“No.”
The answer struck harder than if he had hesitated.
Elena moved toward the door but did not open it. “Then don’t stand there saying you knew nothing.”
“I knew she had authority to sign specific financial documents for me. I did not know she could use it for this.”
“She could.”
“I see that.”
“You should have seen it before.”
“Yes.”
The immediate agreement left Elena with nowhere to place the next sentence.
Julian’s breath came unevenly through the door. “I don’t know what that paper is yet. I don’t know why she did it. I don’t know whether it’s enforceable. But I should never have given her the ability to put my name on something I hadn’t read.”
Elena rested her forehead against the cool wood.
“That doesn’t make you innocent.”
“No.”
The corridor remained silent.
“Go away,” she said.
“All right.”
She heard him take one step, then stop.
“My phone code is your birthday,” he said. “The year first.”
“You should change that. It’s a terrible code.”
“I know.”
His shoes moved slowly down the corridor.
Elena stood against the door until she could no longer hear them.
Her lawyer, Giulia Ferri, arrived forty minutes later wearing a navy dress beneath a raincoat, though no rain had fallen. Giulia was forty-three, compact, blunt, and unable to conceal disapproval. She had attended the civil ceremony but declined the reception, claiming a migraine. Elena had privately suspected she simply hated wealthy weddings.
Giulia entered the study, removed her shoes, and placed them side by side beneath a chair.
“I drove too fast,” she said.
Elena gave her the envelope.
Giulia read the amendment while standing. Halfway through, she sat down. Near the end, she took out her glasses and began again.
“Where did you find this?”
“Inside a box of cards from the groom’s family. It was under a note from Celeste.”
“The note?”
Elena had left it on the gift table.
Giulia’s mouth compressed.
“I didn’t know it mattered.”
“Everything matters until we know what doesn’t.”
Elena looked toward the closed door. “Is the vineyard gone?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“No lawyer who is certain before reading the underlying documents should be arrested.”
“Giulia.”
“The amendment requires your signature. You did not sign it.”
“But we married.”
“Marriage appears to be a triggering condition, not a substitute for execution. The distinction is important.”
“Appears?”
“I need the company articles, the shareholders’ agreement, your father’s succession documents, any existing financing covenants, and the formation records for this Mercer-Bellandi entity.”
“My father never agreed to a Mercer-Bellandi entity.”
“Then it may not exist.”
“It’s named here.”
“People can name fictional companies in proposed contracts. It is one of the more optimistic habits of corporate lawyers.”
Elena sat behind her father’s desk. The veil tugged at her scalp. She reached up to remove it, then stopped when the pins caught in her hair.
Giulia came around the desk and began taking them out.
It was the first tender thing anyone had done for Elena since the ballroom.
“Did Julian know?” Elena asked.
“I have no idea.”
“He says no.”
“He would.”
“His mother says no.”
“She would too, for different reasons.”
Giulia placed the veil across the back of a chair. “Do you want legal advice or permission to believe him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good. That is more honest than most clients are on their wedding nights.”
The word wedding made Elena look down at her dress. A small spot of red wine marked the ivory lace near her hip. She could not remember spilling anything.
Giulia photographed every page of the amendment and called her associate in Florence. She asked for copies of corporate filings, emailed Julian’s attorney, and instructed the estate manager to lock the administrative offices until morning. Then she called Francesca and asked her to locate the note that had accompanied the envelope.
May you like
The note was gone.
Not missing in the way papers disappear beneath plates. Francesca and two members of the staff searched the gift table, the floor, the linen bins, and the containers where cards had been moved after the confrontation. The cream envelope’s outer box remained. The note did not.
