Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN BEFORE ME
Samantha Reed had not disappeared.
She had been erased.
There was a difference.
Julian found her in Connecticut.
Married.
Two children.
A completely different surname.
At first, she refused to speak.
Then I sent her one photograph.
Eleanor.
Vanessa.
The emerald necklace.
Ten minutes later, Samantha called.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
Her voice carried no surprise.
Only exhaustion.
I asked her to meet.
She agreed under one condition.
“Damien cannot be there.”
He was furious.
I did not care.
Samantha arrived at Valenti headquarters that afternoon.
She was thirty-eight.
Elegant.
Calm.
Nothing like the unstable gold digger Eleanor had described during my marriage.
Samantha stared at me for several seconds.
Then at the fading marks on my cheek.
Her expression changed.
“He hit you.”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Did he hit you?”
“No.”
That answer surprised me.
“Then why did you leave?”
Samantha placed an old envelope on the table.
“Because Eleanor showed me what would happen if I stayed.”
Inside were photographs.
Samantha’s younger brother outside a nightclub.
Her father entering a medical clinic.
Her mother meeting an attorney.
Surveillance.
“Eleanor investigated my entire family.”
“Why?”
“Because Damien proposed.”
Samantha laughed without humor.
“She loved me until she thought I might actually become a Hargrave.”
I understood that immediately.
“What did she threaten?”
“My father’s company.”
Samantha looked at Gabriel.
“He had borrowed money from a Hargrave-affiliated bank.”
My father frowned.
“That bank was later investigated.”
Samantha nodded.
“Eleanor threatened foreclosure.”
“And you left Damien?”
“I tried to tell him.”
“What happened?”
“He called me paranoid.”
Something inside me hurt.
Of course he did.
Samantha continued.
“Eleanor showed Damien messages suggesting I was seeing someone else.”
“Fake?”
“Yes.”
“He believed her?”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the empty chair Damien would have occupied.
A pattern.
Not just Eleanor’s pattern.
Damien’s too.
He trusted suspicion when suspicion allowed him to avoid responsibility.
“He never came after you?”
“He came once.”
Samantha’s face softened.
“I almost told him everything.”
“What stopped you?”
“He brought his mother.”
Of course.
Eleanor always stood between Damien and the truth.
Samantha opened another envelope.
“There’s something you need to see.”
A letter.
Written by Richard Hargrave.
Damien’s father.
Seven years earlier.
It was addressed to Samantha.
I am sorry for what Eleanor has done.
I looked at Samantha.
“Richard knew?”
“He knew enough.”
My father took the letter.
His expression hardened as he read.
Richard admitted Eleanor controlled family finances.
Manipulated Damien.
Threatened Samantha.
Then one sentence changed the direction of everything.
If Eleanor ever succeeds in marrying Damien to Gabriel Valenti’s daughter, Gabriel must be warned that she still intends to recover the Bellrose documents.
I looked at Gabriel.
“Bellrose?”
My father did not speak.
“You know what that is.”
“Yes.”
“What documents?”
Silence.
Samantha looked between us.
Gabriel closed the letter.
“Your mother’s.”
My breath caught.
My mother had died when I was nineteen.
Isabella Valenti.
The woman whose old brown leather handbag now sat beside me.
“What did my mother have to do with the Hargraves?”
Gabriel sat slowly.
“More than I told you.”
Anger returned.
“Apparently that sentence defines our family.”
“Elena.”
“No.”
I pushed the letter toward him.
“Everyone knew something except me.”
“I was protecting you.”
I laughed.
“Do not use Eleanor’s favorite excuse.”
That silenced him.
My father looked suddenly tired.
“Your mother audited one of Richard Hargrave’s companies twenty-four years ago.”
“What did she find?”
“A concealed ownership structure.”
“What ownership?”
“Hargrave Industrial Holdings.”
I frowned.
“That’s the company that became Hargrave Industries.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Gabriel looked toward Julian.
Julian already understood.
My father finally said:
“Richard did not legally own all of it.”
I felt the room narrow.
“Who did?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Your mother.”
Silence.
I stared.
“That makes no sense.”
“Isabella’s family invested in Richard’s first company before you were born.”
“How much?”
“Forty-eight percent.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“What happened to the shares?”
“They were moved.”
“Sold?”
“No.”
“Transferred?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Forged.”
Samantha whispered, “Oh my God.”
I stared at my father.
“You are telling me Damien’s family fortune was built on shares stolen from my mother?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?”
“Not until years later.”
“When?”
“Shortly before Isabella died.”
Something inside me went cold.
“How did she die?”
My father stood.
“Elena.”
“How did she die?”
“You know.”
“A highway accident.”
“Yes.”
I watched his face.
He was hiding something.
I knew him too well.
“Was it an accident?”
The room became completely silent.
Gabriel did not answer.
I stopped breathing.
“Dad.”
May you like
His eyes met mine.
“We could never prove otherwise.”
