Chapter 4 - HIS MOTHER HAD BEEN INSIDE MY STUDY
Bianca came to Miriam’s office voluntarily.
That surprised me.
She wore cream wool, pearls, and the expression of a woman arriving to correct inferior people.
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
I placed the access log in front of her.
“You entered my study at 2:04 a.m.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Maris needed a charger.”
“In my locked office?”
“Aurelio said there was one inside.”
“Did Aurelio go with you?”
“No.”
“Maris?”
“Yes.”
Miriam leaned forward.
“How long were you inside?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Three minutes.”
Bianca’s mouth tightened.
I asked:
“Did you see Maris use my computer?”
“No.”
“My signature token?”
“No.”
“Then what were you doing?”
“Looking for a charger.”
“At two in the morning.”
“Yes.”
“And afterward?”
“We returned downstairs.”
Security footage contradicted her.
Bianca exited at 2:07.
Maris remained inside until 2:13.
Six minutes alone.
Bianca stared at the video still.
“I didn’t know.”
Maybe.
But then Miriam asked:
“Why did you authorize sixty million dollars into Bell-Vantrelle?”
Bianca’s composure returned.
“Because the company needed cleaner IP governance.”
“Why does Maris participate economically?”
“She developed the restructuring.”
I almost laughed.
“A secretary developed a sixty-million-dollar IP vehicle?”
Bianca’s eyes flashed.
“She is not merely a secretary.”
There it was.
“What is she?”
Silence.
Then Bianca realized she had said too much.
I waited.
Miriam waited.
Finally Bianca spoke.
“Maris is exceptionally capable.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
She looked at me.
“Her father worked with my husband.”
Aurelio’s father had died twelve years earlier.
“What kind of work?”
“Early Vantrelle research.”
I frowned.
Aurelio always claimed he built his first prototypes alone in a university lab.
Bianca continued reluctantly.
“Dr. Adrian Bell was part of the original engineering group.”
“Maris’s father?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He died before the company launched.”
“How?”
“Cancer.”
“What does that have to do with my patents?”
Bianca looked away.
Then Miriam understood.
“The Bell family believes they have an ownership claim.”
Bianca said nothing.
I felt the story shift.
“Those thirteen patents were mine before I married Aurelio.”
“Yes.”
“But were they derived from Dr. Bell’s work?”
“No.”
Immediate.
Interesting.
“Then why compensate Maris?”
Bianca’s answer took too long.
“Because Aurelio felt the family deserved recognition.”
“Thirty-five percent of an IP vehicle holding technology worth tens of billions?”
No response.
I pushed.
“Did Aurelio sleep with her?”
Bianca’s mouth tightened.
“Marriage is more complicated than a photograph.”
That was not a no.
I stood.
“Conversation over.”
“Anneke, sit down.”
I looked at her.
She stopped.
I walked toward the door.
Then Bianca said:
“If you destroy Vantrelle Systems, thousands of employees lose jobs.”
I turned.
“I have not destroyed anything.”
“You are threatening to terminate the licenses.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“Your son attempted to transfer assets he did not own.”
“That is semantics.”
“That is law.”
Her eyes hardened.
“You always had more money than Aurelio. More family influence. More security. Do you know what that did to him?”
I almost laughed.
“Made him build a billion-dollar company with my money?”
“You emasculated him.”
There it was.
Not Maris.
Not patents.
Resentment.
Bianca had spent years watching her son receive help from his wife and translating it into humiliation.
Maybe Aurelio had learned the same language.
Then Bianca said something I did not expect.
“Aurelio never wanted Bell-Vantrelle to carry Maris’s name.”
I stopped.
“Who did?”
“I did.”
Miriam stared.
“Why?”
Bianca’s face changed.
“Because Maris Bell is my daughter.”
Silence.
I thought I had misheard.
Bianca closed her eyes.
“Aurelio’s half sister.”
The woman sitting in my seat with her hand on my husband’s thigh was not merely his secretary.
May you like
She was his mother’s secret child.
And Aurelio had known for almost a year.
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