Part 4
“Then leave.”
Isabel looked at the locked door.
Beyond it, a floorboard creaked.
Someone stopped outside.
A soft knock followed.
“Isabel,” Julian said.
She lowered her voice. “He’s here.”
“Do not open the door.”
“Maya.”
“I’m serious.”
“He isn’t violent.”
“People can become unfamiliar when eleven million dollars disappears.”
“It didn’t disappear.”
“You know what I mean.”
Julian knocked again.
“Please.”
Isabel looked at her reflection.
“I’ll call you from the car.”
“Keep the envelope.”
“I left it on the table.”
Maya said nothing.
Isabel felt the mistake before Maya named it.
“You left the original documents with them?”
“Copies.”
“Sealed copies?”
“Yes.”
“Then leave them. We have originals.”
Isabel ended the call.
Julian was still outside.
She unlocked the door.
His eyes went first to her face. The cream had begun to dry at the edges, tightening the skin near her nose.
“Why haven’t you cleaned that off?”
“Why does it bother you now?”
He lowered his gaze.
Behind him, the main hall remained empty. The distance between them was less than three feet, but he seemed to be speaking from the other side of something neither of them could cross.
“My mother lost control.”
“She was very controlled.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“I didn’t know she was going to do that.”
“You knew she ordered the cake.”
“I thought it was dessert.”
“You laughed.”
He leaned one shoulder against the wall. “I was shocked.”
“You laugh when you’re shocked?”
“Sometimes.”
“No. You laugh when someone else is embarrassed and you think it proves they’re weak.”
“That’s not who I am.”
“It was who you were ten minutes ago.”
He looked toward the foyer. “Can we go somewhere private?”
“We are alone.”
“I mean away from her.”
“Why?”
“Because she makes everything worse.”
“You invited me into her house for an engagement brunch.”
“I didn’t invite you for this.”
“What did you invite me for?”
He pushed away from the wall.
“To tell her about the sale.”
“You didn’t know I was the buyer.”
“To tell her about the lender.”
“She didn’t know about the loan.”
“I was going to explain it carefully.”
“When?”
He opened his mouth.
Isabel waited.
The house made another small sound in the walls. Metal contracting. Water moving through old pipes. Bellweather had always seemed to speak in clicks and knocks, especially in winter. When she first began working there, Julian had told her the house disliked strangers.
She had mistaken that for charm.
“I was trying to protect her,” he said.
“From what?”
“The truth.”
“That is not protection.”
“You don’t know my mother.”
“I know she pressed cake into my face while you watched.”
His expression tightened. “Can you stop saying it like that?”
“How should I say it?”
“It sounds—”
“Ugly?”
He glanced toward the powder room.
There were folded guest towels beside the basin, each embroidered with a small gray A. Isabel had once asked why the monogram had not been changed after Vivienne married into the family. Julian said his mother had always been more Ashford than his father.
“What do you want?” Isabel asked.
“For you to pause.”
“The deed is recorded.”
“I mean us.”
She looked at the ring on her left hand.
It had belonged to Julian’s grandmother. Vivienne had brought it to Isabel in a velvet box two weeks after the proposal and explained that it was temporarily being resized. The diamond was old, slightly warm in color, with a small chip beside one prong.
Isabel had loved the imperfection.
Now she wondered whether the ring had been given because Julian could not afford another.
He saw her looking at it.
“The engagement had nothing to do with the side agreement.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it wasn’t real.”
“It was signed.”
“It was leverage. Garrison wanted evidence that I had access to capital.”
“So you invented access to mine.”
“I never gave them your financial statements.”
“You told them I would bring my investors into a repurchase.”
“I said it was a possibility.”
“You used our marriage as collateral.”
“That isn’t what collateral means.”
She almost admired the reflex. He could still correct her vocabulary while his family home changed ownership.
Isabel pulled the ring from her finger.
Julian straightened.
“Don’t.”
She placed it on the narrow table beneath the mail.
“Isabel.”
“I need you to listen carefully. I’m not doing this to punish you. I’m doing it because I don’t know which parts of our life were true.”
“All of it was true.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I love you.”
“You also planned to use me.”
“I was trying to save Bellweather.”
“From the debt you created.”
His face hardened.
The softness vanished so quickly that she saw how much effort it had required.
“You benefited from that debt.”
“How?”
“It paid your firm.”
“My firm was not paid.”
“It funded the stabilization work.”
“It funded half the work, then you moved the remaining money.”
The silence between them sharpened.
Julian’s eyes shifted.
She had suspected it for weeks. The lender’s draw records did not match the construction invoices. Money designated for the roof had been sent to a hospitality company in Delaware, then returned in smaller amounts through two different accounts.
Maya had warned her not to accuse him until they had complete records.
Julian spoke carefully. “Who told you that?”
“You just did.”
He looked past her.
For the first time, fear entered his face without disguise.
“Isabel, there are things you don’t understand.”
“Then explain one.”
“The hotel fund had a temporary liquidity problem.”
“You used construction money from Bellweather?”
“I moved it for nine days.”
“Without authorization.”
“It came back.”
“Not all of it.”
He rubbed his jaw. “You’ve been going through my accounts.”
“I reviewed the lender’s closing file.”
“You had no right.”
“I was the buyer.”
The words landed differently the second time.
Julian turned away.
May you like
At the far end of the hall, Vivienne stood beside the conservatory doors.
She had regained her posture. Both shoulders were level. Her suit jacket had been buttoned. The black envelope was in her hand.
