Chapter 3 - November 17
We moved Emma and Ava into a private room behind the ballroom.
My attorney, Lena Cross, arrived within twenty minutes.
Camille’s father, Charles Whitmore, arrived in twelve.
Emma hid behind my chair.
I stood.
“Lower your voice.”
Charles pointed at Olivia’s phone.
“That woman has been trying to blackmail this family for years.”
“You know Olivia?”
His face changed.
Too late.
Lena heard it too.
Charles corrected himself.
“I know of her.”
“From where?”
“Camille told me.”
“Camille said she didn’t know who the child was.”
He stared at me.
Then smiled.
“You’re emotional.”
“Answer the question.”
Instead, he looked at Lena.
“You should advise your client not to make accusations at his own wedding.”
Lena said, “I’m advising him not to sign anything.”
Charles’s smile vanished.
That mattered.
A marital voting proxy I had been scheduled to sign after the reception.
It gave Camille temporary authority over a block of Hale family shares if I became medically unavailable.
At the time, it had sounded like ordinary estate planning.
Now it sounded different.
I asked Lena, “What trust file could Olivia mean?”
She looked uncomfortable.
“There is one descendant trust created by your father.”
“I know about it.”
“No. You know the public summary.”
She opened her laptop.
“Your father amended it on November 17, seven years ago.”
My heart stopped.
“The day Olivia disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“What changed?”
Lena turned the screen toward me.
If Alexandre Hale has a biological child born outside marriage, voting control of forty-one percent of Hale Development transfers into a protected descendant trust upon verified paternity.
Charles stared at the screen.
I stared at him.
The joint acquisition required my forty-one percent vote.
If Emma was my daughter, I no longer controlled those shares alone.
The child everyone wanted removed from my wedding could stop the biggest deal of Charles Whitmore’s life.
Then Emma whispered, “Mommy said Mr. Charles came to our house.”
May you like
Charles turned toward her.
And Emma screamed.
