Chapter 7 - THE DAY ADRIEN FIRST SAW ME
Seven years earlier, Adrien had bumped into me outside a bookstore on West Seventy-Second Street.
At least that was the story I had loved.
I dropped three books.
He helped pick them up.
One was a battered copy of Jane Eyre.
He joked that anybody carrying that many tragic romances deserved coffee.
I told him Jane Eyre wasn’t a tragic romance.
He bought me coffee so I could explain why.
That afternoon became dinner.
Dinner became Sunday mornings.
Sunday mornings became five years of marriage.
I had told that story at our wedding.
Now Luca was saying it was staged.
I looked at Adrien.
“Tell me he’s lying.”
Adrien didn’t answer fast enough.
My heart broke in a new place.
“Elena.”
“Tell me.”
“I knew who you were.”
The room became soundless.
“How?”
“My father gave me a file.”
“A file?”
“You were twenty-four.”
“So you researched me?”
“No.”
“Then what do you call a file?”
Adrien stood, but he kept his distance.
“My father told me your mother had once owned shares in a small logistics company that later became part of Moretti Global.”
I remembered my mother mentioning a company she worked for before I was born, but she had died when I was nineteen. There had never been significant money.
“At first,” Adrien continued, “my father said meeting you would resolve an old legal complication.”
“And you agreed?”
“I was twenty-nine and still trying to prove I could run the company better than he could.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So coffee was a business meeting.”
“The first thirty seconds were.”
I stared at him.
“What happened after thirty seconds?”
“I forgot why I was there.”
That would have sounded romantic yesterday.
Today it sounded cruel.
“You lied for seven years.”
“Yes.”
“Did you marry me because of the company?”
“No.”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
He had no answer I could trust.
Vanessa interrupted softly.
“We need to know what Elena’s mother owned.”
We returned to the encrypted archive.
My mother’s name appeared in an acquisition file from twenty-eight years earlier.
MARGARET BENNETT.
She had owned 4.8 percent of Bellini Freight.
Bellini.
The same family as Luca’s biological mother.
Adrien stared at the screen.
Another document showed the shares had never legally transferred.
They passed to Margaret’s only child.
Me.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Vanessa began calculating.
Her eyes widened.
“It means Elena unknowingly owns part of the holding company beneath the Moretti port division.”
“How much?”
“After restructurings and conversions?”
She looked at me.
“Potentially more than Adrien.”
My stomach turned.
Adrien’s father hadn’t wanted us married because I was socially appropriate.
He wanted my signature close.
Then we found our prenuptial agreement.
An addendum I had never seen had been attached after I signed.
It granted Moretti Global purchase rights over inherited Bellini interests.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
Perfectly reproduced.
But I had never signed it.
Adrien stared at the page.
“That’s forged.”
I looked at him.
“Who had access to our prenup?”
His answer was immediate.
“Thomas Vale.”
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A new photograph appeared.
Thomas Vale standing beside my mother.
Twenty-eight years earlier.
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On the back of the scanned photograph someone had written:
ASK ADRIEN WHO REALLY KILLED HER.
