Chapter 23 - The Marriage That Wasn't an Accident
Chloe arrived at Sterling Tower under armed escort.
Six months earlier, I would never have imagined allowing that woman within a hundred feet of me.
But six months earlier, I had believed Dominic was the greatest betrayal of my life.
I had been wrong.
Chloe looked nothing like the woman who had screamed accusations across that ballroom.
No designer gown.
No diamonds.
No entourage.
Just jeans, a cheap coat, and fear.
She placed Eleanor's letter on the table.
“My mother told me to burn it.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Because I'm tired.”
Her voice cracked.
“I'm tired of discovering that every person in my family is worse than I thought.”
I opened the letter.
Most of it was meaningless personal instructions.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
Dominic failed. Parker will finish what should have been completed before the child was born.
My stomach tightened.
Aria.
I looked at Chloe.
“How much did you know?”
“Nothing about this.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I hated you, Vivienne.”
She looked directly at me.
“I was jealous of you. I thought you were poor. I thought Dominic had married beneath us.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“But I never wanted you dead.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Why would Eleanor want Vivienne dead?”
Chloe shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Then she remembered something.
“Wait.”
She reached into her handbag and removed an old photograph.
“My mother kept this hidden in her bedroom.”
Four people stood together at a charity event nearly thirty years earlier.
Richard Crawford.
A younger Eleanor.
Parker's father.
And my mother.
I turned toward Catherine.
“Mom?”
She stared at the photograph.
“I haven't seen this in decades.”
“Who was Eleanor?”
My mother's voice became almost inaudible.
“She worked for my father.”
“Doing what?”
Catherine looked at me.
“She handled his private accounts.”
Everything suddenly connected.
May you like
Eleanor hadn't entered our lives because Dominic happened to marry me.
She had been waiting.
