Chương 10
Then he stepped back and placed his hands in his pockets.
“I’m trying,” he said.
Claire looked at him.
“Try without making Owen carry your hope.”
Daniel swallowed.
“He misses me.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
The question was quiet and almost human enough to wound her.
She looked at the dark ring on his right hand. He turned it with his thumb when anxious.
“I miss who I was when I thought you were safe.”
He flinched.
For one second she regretted saying it. The line sounded too finished, too much like something a stranger would quote beneath a video.
Then Daniel’s face hardened.
“You always did enjoy an audience.”
He walked away.
Celia contacted Claire that evening from an unknown number.
Can we meet without lawyers?
Claire showed Ruth.
“No,” Ruth said.
“What if she has evidence?”
“Then lawyers help preserve it.”
“She says she needs protection.”
“From whom?”
“She didn’t say.”
Ruth advised a recorded meeting at her office with Celia’s consent. Celia refused. She said her attorney worked for Daniel’s company and had instructed her to stop communicating.
Claire asked why Daniel’s company paid her attorney.
Celia did not answer.
Two days later, an envelope arrived at Lumen House.
Inside was a printed screenshot of a text conversation between Daniel and Celia.
Daniel: Keep rolling no matter what she does.
Celia: Does she know about the cake thing?
Daniel: She knows enough.
Celia: That isn’t an answer.
Daniel: You’re being paid to capture a moment, not manage my relationship.
The screenshot had no visible date.
It could be altered.
It could also be real.
At the bottom of the page, Celia had written an address and a time.
Claire wanted to go.
Ruth said no.
Arthur said send security.
Nina said Celia would disappear if they arrived like a government delegation.
Claire chose Nina.
They met Celia in the back booth of a twenty-four-hour diner in Queens. Rain streaked the windows. The coffee tasted burned, and a refrigerator behind the counter made a metallic rattling sound every few minutes.
Celia wore jeans, a black sweater, and no makeup. Without the sequined gown, she looked younger than Claire had assumed.
Her dark blue phone lay on the table between them.
“I didn’t know he was going to push you that hard,” she said.
Claire took off her coat. “You knew he was going to push me.”
“I thought it was a staged cake smash.”
“Did I agree?”
“He said you had.”
“Did you ask me?”
“No.”
“Then why did you believe him?”
Celia stared at the sugar dispenser.
“Because believing him paid better.”
Nina shifted beside Claire.
Celia continued before either of them could speak.
“Daniel hired me six months ago. Freelance content strategy. He wanted more personal material because the company was struggling. Investors like founders with families. He said your father’s name made some people nervous, but you and Owen made him look stable.”
Claire’s coffee remained untouched.
“What did you create?”
“Photos. Party clips. The charity dinner. That video of Daniel making pancakes.”
“He burned those pancakes.”
“We shot it four times.”
Claire remembered eating the fifth batch while Daniel complained that she looked tired on camera.
“The proposal was supposed to go live?” Nina asked.
“Not live. Edited quickly. He wanted the cake prank, then the ring reveal, then Claire saying yes. He said it would make them look spontaneous.”
“Them?”
“The company. The family. All of it.”
“Why my mother’s ring?”
Celia looked at Claire. “He said you couldn’t refuse it in public.”
The refrigerator rattled behind the counter.
Claire heard every movement in the diner: a spoon striking ceramic, a cook calling an order, rain ticking against the glass.
“What else?”
Celia pushed the phone toward her.
The device contained messages, draft captions, a production schedule, and a private presentation titled Voss Renewal Narrative. The slides described Daniel as a founder entering “a new season of commitment, family leadership, and strategic stability.” One page displayed a photograph of Claire, Daniel, and Owen beneath the words THE MERCER-VOSS FUTURE.
Another listed planned media placements after the proposal.
A business publication.
A society website.
An entrepreneurship podcast.
A lender update.
“This was for the loan,” Claire said.
Celia nodded.
“Daniel said the lender needed confidence that you were staying.”
“My engagement was collateral.”
“He didn’t call it that.”
“What did he call it?”
“Alignment.”
Nina made a disgusted sound.
Claire kept scrolling.
The cake smash appeared in the schedule as Humorous Pattern Interrupt: 3–5 seconds. The ring reveal followed. Daniel’s speaking notes included a sentence about imperfect families choosing one another in public and private.
Claire stopped.
“Did you write this?”
“Parts of it.”
“Which parts?”
“The captions. The line about imperfect families was his.”
“You laughed.”
Celia’s eyes filled, but she did not look away.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I laugh when I’m scared.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It isn’t. It’s awful.”
Claire wanted to hate her cleanly. Celia had aimed the phone, accepted the money, ignored the obvious question, and laughed while Owen froze.
But Celia’s hands shook around the coffee cup. One thumbnail was torn below the quick.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Daniel blamed me.”
“For what?”
“The video getting out. The original clip wasn’t mine, but he says I failed to control the room. He withheld my last payment and threatened to sue me for breaching confidentiality.”
“That doesn’t make you my ally.”
“I know.”
“Were you sleeping with him?”
Nina looked at Claire.
Celia went still.
“No.”
Claire waited.
Celia’s eyes dropped.
“Once,” she said. “Last year.”
The answer did not shock Claire the way she expected. It landed beside the ring, the loan documents, the staged pancakes, and the hand on her neck as another fact that had been living inside her house without permission.
“Where?”
“A conference in Miami.”
“Did it continue?”
“No.”
“Did he want it to?”
“Yes.”
“And you kept working for him.”
“I needed the work.”
Claire almost laughed.
May you like
Everyone had an explanation.
Daniel needed financing.
