Chương 7
Evelyn had once recommended a framer.
That was the closest she had come to consulting.
The company’s investigators asked to interview her. Priya insisted the meeting take place at her office, not Wycliffe Hall or Ashcombe headquarters.
Julian arrived unexpectedly.
He stood in the reception area holding no coat despite the February cold. Without the tuxedo, he looked more familiar and more dangerous. He wore a navy suit Evelyn had helped him choose. A faint white mark remained on his lapel where the wedding boutonnière had been pinned.
Priya stepped between them.
“You were informed Mr. Ashcombe would not attend,” she said to the investigator.
“I wasn’t told he was coming,” the woman replied.
Julian looked at Evelyn. “Five minutes.”
“No.”
“Please.”
The word sounded wrong in his mouth.
Priya asked Evelyn, “Do you wish to leave?”
Evelyn considered it.
Then Julian said, “I need to know whether she’s all right.”
There it was again. Not Is she all right? but I need to know.
Evelyn handed Priya her bag and walked into the empty conference room. Priya remained by the open door.
Julian did not sit.
His gaze moved over Evelyn’s face, stomach, shoes, and hands, checking for damage as though examining a car after an accident.
“I didn’t mean for you to fall.”
“I know.”
Relief flashed across his face.
“That doesn’t make it acceptable.”
“I pulled away because you grabbed me.”
“You denied knowing me.”
“I panicked.”
“You had a sentence ready.”
“I saw Malcolm watching.”
“You were surrounded by everyone whose opinion matters to you.”
“That isn’t fair.”
She almost laughed. “What would be fair?”
“You walking into my wedding without warning?”
“I warned you for three weeks.”
“You sent messages saying we needed to speak. That isn’t warning me you’re going to appear in front of two hundred people.”
“One hundred and forty-six.”
His brow furrowed.
“The papers counted.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Evie.”
“Don’t.”
His hand fell.
For a moment, neither spoke. Traffic moved beyond the office windows. Somewhere in the building, a printer produced page after page with mechanical patience.
Julian looked older than he had at the wedding. Not broken. Merely inconvenienced by consequences he had assumed would remain theoretical.
“I cared about you,” he said.
“Past tense?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I knew what I thought you meant.”
“I was going to end the engagement.”
“You married her.”
“It wasn’t simple.”
“You put on a suit, stood in a chapel, and said yes.”
His face tightened. “You think one morning explains my entire life?”
“No. Eleven months explained enough.”
He walked to the window and back. He had always paced when cornered, filling space so others had less of it.
“My father would have removed me.”
“From the company?”
“From everything.”
“You told me you didn’t care.”
“I thought I didn’t.”
“That is the most honest thing you’ve said.”
He looked at her stomach.
“I want a test.”
“After the baby is born.”
“It can be done before.”
“My doctor advises waiting.”
“That means months of this.”
“Six weeks.”
“You expect me to accept what you say without proof?”
“I accepted what you said without proof every day.”
His eyes closed briefly.
When he opened them, anger had returned, cleaner and easier for him than shame.
“You recorded me without telling me.”
“You knew.”
“Not that night.”
“The phone was on the shelf in front of us.”
“I thought you were recording the baby moving.”
“I was. Then you started making promises.”
“So you kept it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because by then I had learned that your promises changed after you left the room.”
Julian glanced toward Priya in the doorway. “Are you giving the full file to the investigators?”
“Yes.”
“It contains private things.”
“It contains the truth.”
“It contains me talking about my father, the board, Beatrice—”
“And our child.”
His voice dropped. “You could destroy my life.”
Evelyn studied the man who had once traced circles on her stomach until she fell asleep.
“No,” she said. “I can prove what you did with it.”
He stared at her.
The distinction seemed genuinely new to him.
The investigation lasted three weeks. During that time, Evelyn’s life narrowed to appointments, legal calls, and the uncomfortable waiting of late pregnancy. Reporters stopped standing outside her building but continued emailing. Helen arranged for her to work remotely on catalog records that required no contact with visitors.
One afternoon, Evelyn spent forty minutes correcting the dimensions of an eighteenth-century writing desk while an online article described her as a “social climber linked to elite cultural circles.”
She closed the article and returned to the desk.
The object had three hidden compartments, two original keys, and a nineteenth-century repair disguised beneath veneer. It was easier than people. Its alterations could be found by looking closely enough.
Beatrice contacted her again through Priya.
This time, the message requested a private meeting and offered a location chosen by Evelyn.
Nora said it was a trap.
Priya said it might be useful.
Evelyn chose a quiet café inside a garden center outside London, where no one would expect an heiress in a wedding photograph or a pregnant woman from a scandal. It smelled of wet soil and tomato soup. Retired couples pushed trolleys of winter pansies past the windows.
Beatrice arrived alone in a camel coat and dark glasses. Without the veil and pearls, she appeared younger, though not softer.
She removed her gloves finger by finger before sitting.
“You look well,” she said.
“I’m enormous.”
“I was attempting politeness.”
“I know.”
Beatrice placed her phone facedown on the table.
“I did not know you were pregnant until two weeks before the wedding.”
Evelyn waited.
“I found a photograph.”
“On his phone?”
“In a locked drawer in his dressing room.”
“What photograph?”
“You in a kitchen. He was behind you with his hands on your stomach.”
May you like
The image Julian had denied recognizing in the ballroom.
Evelyn folded her hands beneath the table. “What did he tell you?”
