Chương 7
“What?”
“I had the internal audit team look at archived access logs and email routing rules.”
Victoria stared at him.
“Audit team?”
“I removed my mother’s access to the family office the morning after the cruise.”
“You can do that?”
“I run it.”
“I thought she ran everything.”
“So did she.”
The old instinct to smile at him surfaced and died.
“What did you find?”
“In the old mail gateway there was a temporary forwarding rule attached to your address.”
Victoria felt the blood leave her face.
“For how long?”
“About five months.”
“Where did messages go?”
“To an administrative archive.”
“Who created the rule?”
“An IT contractor using credentials belonging to an executive assistant.”
“Beth?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“My mother’s assistant at the time. She died three years ago.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
Alexander continued carefully.
“I’m not saying my mother personally configured anything. She wouldn’t know how. But the timing is…”
“Convenient?”
“Yes.”
“How many messages?”
“Seven.”
Victoria opened her eyes.
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
“I sent more.”
“Some went to my old personal account after it was deactivated. Two went through the office system. Five were from a different address you used.”
“My studio address.”
He nodded.
“Did you read them?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“They’re still archived. I had counsel preserve them before anyone opened the content.”
Victoria stared.
He had learned caution.
Seven years too late.
“I want copies.”
“You’ll have them.”
Daniel reentered carrying three coffees.
He took one look at their faces and set the cups down.
“I assume we’re past small talk.”
“There was an email rule,” Victoria said.
Daniel stopped moving.
Alexander explained.
The next month turned Victoria’s life into a collection of appointments.
Lawyers.
A child therapist.
The school counselor.
A crisis communications consultant Naomi hired without asking permission and paid for personally after Victoria called the expense “corporate nonsense.”
The consultant’s name was Erin Walsh.
She wore sneakers with business suits and had the unsettling habit of allowing silence to continue until someone filled it.
At their first meeting, Erin played the boat video on mute.
Victoria watched herself cross the lounge.
Watched the slap.
Watched Sophie flinch.
She looked away.
Erin paused the video.
“What do you want the public to believe?”
“The truth.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It should be.”
“It never is.”
Naomi leaned against the wall.
“I like her.”
Victoria ignored her.
Erin said, “Do you want people to believe you were justified in hitting Margaret Reed?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Naomi looked at Victoria.
Victoria continued, “I was justified in confronting her. I was not justified in hitting her.”
Erin nodded.
“That’s usable because it happens to be true.”
Three days later Victoria released a statement.
She did not tell the public the details of the forged letter.
She did not publish the DNA report.
She did not describe Margaret’s conduct beyond saying that a serious private family matter had led to the confrontation.
She wrote one sentence herself and refused to let Erin change it.
I was angry, but anger does not make striking another person acceptable, especially in front of my daughter.
Some people praised it.
Some called it strategic.
Some called her abusive.
Some said Margaret deserved worse.
Victoria found the last category almost as disturbing as the first.
She stopped reading comments.
Naomi did not.
“I read them for you,” she said.
“That defeats the purpose.”
“I summarize.”
“I don’t want summaries.”
“Most people think your dress was excellent.”
“Naomi.”
“I’m creating balance.”
Alexander released a statement of his own the next morning.
He confirmed that genetic testing had established he was Sophie’s biological father.
He said he had not known of her existence.
He asked the public and press not to identify, photograph, contact, or approach his daughter.
He did not attack Victoria.
He did not defend Margaret.
The final sentence caused Reed Meridian’s communications director to call him six times.
My family is reviewing how information concerning Victoria Hale and her pregnancy was handled seven years ago, and I will not speculate publicly while that review is underway.
The board noticed the words my family.
The market did not care for several hours, then forgot.
The people inside the Reed family did not.
Margaret called Alexander thirty-one times that week.
He answered the thirty-second.
He later told Victoria about the conversation months afterward, not because he thought it excused anything but because Sophie had asked a question he could not answer without the truth.
At the time, Margaret was living in the Gold Coast apartment she had owned before her husband died.
Alexander met her there on a Sunday afternoon.
She had made tea.
That annoyed him more than it should have.
“You’re trying to destroy me,” she said.
He remained standing.
“No.”
“You released that statement without speaking to me.”
“I spoke to you on the boat.”
“You humiliated this family.”
He looked at her.
She laughed once.
“Yes. Fine. You’re going to say I did that.”
“You forged a letter.”
“I protected you.”
“Stop calling it that.”
“You have no idea what was happening.”
“My father was dying.”
“He was not dying then.”
“He nearly did.”
“And you were about to walk away from everything.”
“Because I wanted to be with Victoria?”
“Because you were thirty-two years old and behaving like consequences belonged to other people.”
Alexander stared at her.
Margaret’s hand trembled when she reached for her teacup.
He noticed.
She noticed him noticing.
Her mouth hardened.
“Your father had spent forty years building something that employed twelve thousand people. You were prepared to resign during the largest transaction in the company’s history because Victoria wanted to move to Boston.”
“She had a job offer.”
“You had a company.”
“She was pregnant.”
“I did not know that when you were discussing Boston.”
“You knew later.”
Margaret looked out the window.
“Yes.”
“And you decided for me.”
“I decided you needed time.”
“Seven years?”
“That was not the plan.”
Alexander’s face changed.
May you like
Margaret looked back at him.
He sat down slowly.
