Chapter 6: The Choice at the Altar
Nolan slipped his phone into his pocket.
“Servers fail.
That is not evidence against me.”
Arthur moved toward him.
“Only three people had authority to access that system.”
“And one of them was you.”
Diane picked up the marriage register.
“This can still be fixed.”
Vanessa stared at her.
“You erased their records?”
“I am trying to protect everything I built for you.”
“You built it for yourself.”
Diane thrust the register at me.
“Sign this.
I will have the money returned as soon as the foundation confirms it will honor the loan.”
Arthur shook his head.
“There is no loan.
There is only leverage.”
Diane lowered her voice.
“If Daniel refuses, four hundred employees will wake up tomorrow without wages.
The hotel will also be named in the lawsuit.
Think carefully about whose lives you’re destroying.”
Guests shifted uncomfortably.
Several employees stood along the walls, watching me.
A server near the door wiped her eyes.
Diane placed the pen in my hand.
“Be the decent man your father pretends to be.”
“Daniel, don’t,” Arthur said.
“What happens to those workers if her company closes?”
“We protect them without rewarding her.”
“With money you might never recover?”
Arthur did not answer.
Diane guided my hand toward the register.
“One signature, and no innocent person suffers.”
Vanessa suddenly tore the page from beneath the pen.
“No.”
Diane stared at her.
“What did you do?”
Vanessa ripped the page in half.
“You taught me that love meant proving loyalty,” she said.
“Today you asked me to prove it by betraying Daniel.”
“I gave you everything.”
“You gave me fear and called it everything.”
Diane raised her hand, but Michael stepped between them.
“Don’t touch her.”
She backed away and pointed at Vanessa.
“If you choose these people, you will have no mother and no inheritance.”
Vanessa removed her engagement ring.
Her fingers shook as she placed it in my palm.
“I knew Mom wanted the marriage to help her company,” she told me.
“I didn’t know about the false signatures, but I laughed at your father because I wanted her approval more than I cared about his dignity.”
My throat closed.
She unlocked her phone and handed it to Ms.
Carter.
“Every message she sent me is there.
She told me what to say, where to seat Arthur, and how to make him feel unwelcome enough to leave.”
Diane grabbed for the phone.
Ms.
Carter stepped behind Arthur.
“You ungrateful little fool,” Diane hissed.
“No,” Vanessa said.
“I was a fool when I obeyed you.”
I opened my hand and looked at the ring.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“Not until I saw you walk away from the altar for him.
That was when I understood what loyalty actually looked like.”
Her answer nearly broke me.
Arthur took my wrist before the ring could fall.
“I’m sorry,” Vanessa whispered.
Arthur opened the tiny gift box.
Inside lay a small gold brooch and a black memory card.
Diane stopped breathing for a moment.
Arthur lifted the card.
“You were so concerned with Michael’s laptop that you forgot about my meeting with you.”
“You didn’t record me.”
“The foundation records every funding interview.”
Nolan headed toward the side door, but two security officers blocked him.
Diane’s mouth twisted.
“The server was erased.”
Ms.
Carter inserted the card into Michael’s laptop.
Arthur looked directly at Diane.
“The server was only the copy.”
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A new recording began, and Diane’s first words silenced the room:
“Once Daniel signs, I’ll move the money before Arthur can stop us.”
