Chương 4
Upstairs, Clara set her suitcase on a luggage rack. The room was clean, beige, and impersonal. She ate half the sandwich while standing near the window. When her phone rang, Julia’s name appeared.
Clara nearly dropped it.
“Hey.”
“You did it.”
Julia’s voice was low. There were other voices behind her, a television or a radio, the scrape of a chair.
“I did.”
“How bad?”
Clara looked at the turkey sandwich. “Bad.”
“Did he open it?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say it wasn’t real?”
“No.”
The silence on the line lasted long enough for Clara to hear Julia breathing.
“What did he say?”
“He admitted you were married.”
“Of course he did. There were witnesses and a clerk and a certificate. He didn’t have much room.”
“He asked where you are.”
Julia made a small sound.
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Good.”
“I told them about the pregnancy.”
The voices behind Julia continued. Someone laughed at something unrelated. Clara closed her eyes.
“Oh,” Julia said.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am.”
“You were angry.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t the same.”
Clara sat on the edge of the bed.
“I shouldn’t have said it.”
“No.”
“I won’t say anything else.”
“You already gave them the part they’ll use.”
“I’m not letting them use it.”
Julia laughed once, without humor. “You don’t get to decide what rich people use.”
A knock came at Clara’s door.
She held the phone closer. “I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Don’t tell me what he looked like.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You always tell me things you think I should want.”
Clara looked down at the carpet.
“Okay.”
“Did she get the ring?”
“No.”
Another long breath.
“Good,” Julia said.
The line went dead.
Celeste stood in the hallway wearing the same coat, now buttoned to the throat.
“May I come in?”
Clara stepped aside.
Celeste sat in the desk chair. She had washed off most of her makeup, but a faint dark line remained beneath one eye. Without the diamonds and candlelight, she looked younger than twenty-eight and much more tired.
“I called my attorney,” she said. “Not my father’s. Mine.”
Clara folded the paper bag closed.
“She ran a preliminary search. There is a marriage record. There is also a petition for dissolution filed eighteen months later.”
“There was no dissolution.”
“The docket shows a final order.”
Clara’s stomach dropped.
Celeste watched her. “You didn’t know.”
“Julia never signed anything.”
“The filing says she did.”
“She didn’t.”
“Then we need more than certainty.”
Clara bristled. “I know my sister.”
“I believed I knew Adrian.”
The words landed without force, which made them impossible to reject.
Celeste looked toward the window. “My attorney says the order may be valid, invalid, forged, mistaken, or something else entirely. She used more legal language. The important part is that no one can responsibly announce anything tonight.”
“I wasn’t planning a press conference.”
“There were fourteen people at dinner.”
“Fourteen people you invited.”
Celeste’s gaze returned to her. “You’re right.”
Clara expected anger. Instead, Celeste turned the pendant at her throat.
“The story will leak by morning,” she said. “My father will want us to deny everything. Helena will want to call you unstable or dishonest. Adrian will want time.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know whether I was about to become someone’s second wife.”
Clara said nothing.
“And I want to know whether you came to that house to protect me,” Celeste continued, “or to punish him.”
“Both.”
Celeste nodded as though she preferred the ugly answer to a beautiful lie.
“Good,” she said. “Then we can start with the truth.”
The first news alert appeared at 6:18 the next morning.
VALE ENGAGEMENT DINNER ENDS IN PRIVATE DISPUTE.
The article contained no details, only a photograph of guests leaving the mansion and a statement from an unnamed source describing “a sensitive family matter.” By seven, another outlet reported that an envelope had interrupted Adrian’s proposal. At eight-thirteen, Clara’s phone displayed sixteen missed calls.
Her mother was not among them.
Celeste’s attorney, Naomi Park, arrived at the hotel carrying two coffees and a legal pad. She was forty-two, wore flat shoes, and did not appear impressed by the cost of the room.
“Which one of you is Clara Reed?”
Clara raised a hand.
Naomi passed her a coffee. “This is not a gift. I bought the wrong size.”
She gave the other to Celeste and sat near the window.
“I represent Celeste,” she said. “I do not represent you. Nothing you tell me is protected for your benefit. I need you to understand that before we talk.”
“I understand.”
“Probably not, but that will do for the moment.”
Celeste took off the lid of her coffee. “Naomi.”
“What? She needs counsel.”
“I know.”
Naomi looked at Clara. “Do you have copies of everything?”
“The marriage certificate, yes.”
“What else?”
“A bank transfer record from Vale Strategic Holdings to an account my parents opened. A confidentiality agreement. Three letters Julia wrote to Adrian that were returned. Screenshots of messages she received from a number used by Helena’s former assistant. A copy of the dissolution order.”
“You have the order?”
Clara opened her suitcase and removed a slim plastic folder from beneath a stack of shirts.
Naomi accepted it without touching the pages directly. She read for several minutes.
“This signature is supposed to be Julia’s?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t resemble the signature on the marriage certificate.”
“No.”
“That does not automatically make it forged.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Clara took out her phone. “I have examples of Julia’s signature from her nursing-school forms and passport.”
Naomi looked at her over the papers. “How did you get her passport?”
“She gave me a copy.”
“Does she know you have all this?”
Clara hesitated.
Naomi set the order down.
“That is going to become the first question anyone asks.”
“She knows I have it.”
“That was not the question.”
May you like
“She agreed I could stop the engagement.”
“Did she agree that you could publicly disclose her marriage, pregnancy loss, mental-health treatment, settlement, and family history?”
