Chapter 4: The Marston Name
The Marston patriarch was named Gerald.
Emma had met him four times.
He had shaken her hand at each meeting with the particular warmth of a man who had already decided she was temporary.
He called her Ellen twice and never corrected himself.
Adrian answered the call and walked six steps away.
Emma could hear the shape of the conversation without the words — short questions, shorter answers, one long silence where Adrian simply listened.
He came back and put the phone in his pocket.
"Cole told him the wedding is off.
He told him it was mutual."
Emma waited.
"He told him you ended it because of cold feet."
The gull came back to the piling.
It looked at Emma.
It left again.
"Of course he did," she said.
"My father is calling the hotel now to begin canceling the arrangements.
He'll want to manage the narrative before it reaches anyone else." Adrian paused.
"He'll also want to know where you are."
"Why?"
"Because if you're the one who ended it, you're not a problem.
If you're the one who was betrayed, you become one."
Emma understood the Marston logic.
She had been living adjacent to it for three years without ever quite seeing its shape.
Now she could see it clearly, the way you could sometimes see a pattern in wallpaper only after you'd decided to strip it.
"What happens if I become a problem?"
"They'll move quickly.
Gerald will have an attorney reach out about the wedding expenses — framing it as a goodwill gesture, but the paperwork will include a non-disclosure clause." Adrian's voice was flat.
Not cruel.
Just accurate.
"Cole will tell anyone who asks that you struggled with the pressure of the wedding.
Tessa will confirm it.
Within two weeks, the story in Port Mercy will be that Emma Bennett got overwhelmed and walked away from a good man."
Emma's hands had stopped shaking.
She noticed that.
"And the Harborview contract?"
"Quietly done.
No paper trail that points anywhere useful."
"So I lose the account, the wedding, and my reputation."
"That's what they're counting on, yes."
She looked at him.
"And you're telling me this because?"
Adrian was quiet for a moment.
The wind off the harbor moved through his shirt.
He had given her his coat and hadn't asked for it back.
"Because Cole is my brother," he said, "and I love him.
And what he did to you is not something I'm willing to pretend didn't happen."
Emma studied his face.
Fifteen meetings over three years.
He had never flirted with her.
Never tried to impress her.
Never done anything except treat her with that careful, particular respect she had assumed was just his way.
"You knew something was wrong," she said.
"Before today.
You said you suspected."
"Yes."
"What did you suspect?"
He looked toward the hotel again.
"That Cole was going to marry you without deserving you.
And that by the time you understood that, it would be too late to matter."
Emma felt something shift inside her chest.
Not warmth — it was too soon for warmth.
More like a door opening onto a room she hadn't known was there.
Her phone buzzed.
Not Tessa this time.
An unknown number.
Port Mercy area code.
She answered.
"Miss Bennett." A man's voice.
Measured.
May you like
"This is Gerald Marston.
I think we should meet."
