Chapter 9 - Six Million Dollars
Julian’s voice was almost too calm.
“What six million dollars?”
Celeste looked pleased now.
For the first time all night, she had information he did not.
“My father received a settlement from Vale Holdings after your accident.”
Rachel frowned. “For what?”
Celeste tilted her head toward Mara.
“Ask the hero.”
Mara stared at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t.”
Julian turned to his attorney. “Find it.”
The attorney opened his laptop.
Celeste leaned against the desk.
“Your father didn’t want the press to know you were driving after drinking at a private Vale event.”
Julian’s jaw clenched.
“I was not drunk.”
“No. But there were investors in the car behind you. My father had photographs. He threatened to release them and claim Vale security forced us off the road.”
Mara remembered headlights behind Julian’s overturned car.
She had thought they belonged to passing traffic.
“What does that have to do with me?” she asked.
Celeste’s eyes flicked to the locket.
“Everything started that night.”
The attorney looked up.
“I found a payment. Six million to Ashford Public Relations, coded as crisis consulting.”
Rachel swore under her breath.
Julian stared at the screen.
“My father paid him.”
“Yes,” Celeste said. “And my father made sure your family remembered who protected the Vale name.”
Mara finally saw the shape of it.
The crash had opened the door.
Celeste’s family had walked through.
“You took credit for saving him,” Mara said.
Celeste shrugged. “You disappeared.”
“You told me the agency would destroy us if they knew we left the van.”
“They would have.”
“You used what I did.”
“I used an opportunity.”
Julian looked sick.
Celeste turned to him. “And before you act morally superior, your father bought silence too.”
“That was his decision.”
“It built the relationship that put me in your life.”
Mara’s phone vibrated again.
This time it was Nora.
Mara answered immediately.
“Nora?”
Her sister was crying.
“Something happened to my school account.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“What happened?”
“My scholarship is gone. The housing deposit too. The portal says funding withdrawn by donor review.”
Julian heard every word.
He looked at Celeste.
Celeste didn’t move.
Mara whispered, “Which donor?”
May you like
Nora took a shaking breath.
“The Ashford Foundation.”
