Chapter 6: What Emma Had Built
Her firm was called Bennett Coastal Group.
She had started it at thirty-one with a business partner named Ruth Calloway, a former commercial real estate attorney who had grown tired of working for other people.
They had rented a two-room office above a dry cleaner on Harbor Street and spent the first eight months surviving on smaller accounts — lease negotiations, property assessments, a handful of small commercial sales.
The Harborview contract had been their first major development deal.
A mixed-use waterfront project, four buildings, long-term lease structures, the kind of account that would have moved Bennett Coastal Group from a small firm into something else entirely.
Ruth was waiting in the office when Emma arrived.
She took one look at Emma's face — and at Adrian Marston standing two steps behind her — and closed the door.
"Tell me," Ruth said.
Emma told her.
All of it.
The hotel room.
The letter.
Gerald's offer.
She set Cole's letter on Ruth's desk and watched her read it.
Ruth read it twice.
She set it down.
She looked at Adrian.
"You're the older brother."
"Yes."
"And you're here because?"
"Because I know where the paper trail is," Adrian said.
"If you want to find it."
Ruth looked at Emma.
"Do we want to find it?"
Emma thought about Gerald's face when she mentioned Harborview.
That fast, gone movement behind his eyes.
"Yes," she said.
Ruth pulled her chair out and sat down.
"Then let's talk about what we actually have."
What they had: Cole's letter, handwritten, dated, naming Tessa's request and Cole's compliance.
What they needed: anything connecting the contract cancellation to a specific instruction, an email, a call record, a message, something that made it a documented act rather than a business decision.
"Cole used his personal email for anything he didn't want on the company server," Adrian said.
"I know his login.
He gave it to me two years ago when he was traveling and needed me to handle something."
Ruth looked at him.
"That's not something you should tell us."
"I know."
"If we access it without his permission—"
"I'm not suggesting you access it." Adrian reached into his jacket and placed a printed page on the desk.
"I'm telling you that before I came to find Emma today, I already had."
The page was an email.
Sent from Cole's personal account to Tessa's.
Dated eleven weeks ago.
*Tessa — I told Harborview we were going in a different direction.
They'll go back to open market.
Emma doesn't know yet.
You said this would fix things between us.
I need you to tell me it will.*
Ruth read it once.
She looked at Adrian.
"Why are you doing this?" she said.
"Because my brother asked me to hand Emma a letter after she'd already said her vows." His voice was even.
"I've been deciding what to do about that for two weeks."
Emma looked at the email.
Eleven weeks ago.
Cole had written to Tessa eleven weeks ago asking if destroying Emma's biggest account would fix things between them.
"He was trying to keep her," Emma said quietly.
"He sabotaged my career to keep my sister interested."
Neither Ruth nor Adrian answered.
They didn't need to.
"What do we do with this?" Ruth asked.
Emma picked up the email and held it next to Cole's letter.
"We don't sign Gerald's agreement," she said.
"And we don't stay quiet."
Her phone buzzed on the desk.
She glanced at the screen.
Cole.
She let it ring.
It rang four more times over the next hour.
May you like
Then it stopped.
Then Tessa called Ruth's office line.
