Chapter 5 - He Knew Enough
I stared at Adrian until the room blurred.
“You investigated me before we married?”
He raised both hands. “I was protecting myself.”
“From what? My elementary school report cards?”
“I didn’t know who you were.”
“That was the point. You told me you loved that I was normal.”
“I loved you.”
Dad made a sound under his breath, but I stopped him with a glance.
Miriam opened the report on her tablet.
Most of it was useless. Old apartments. College records. Charities. A closed adoption foundation my mother once supported. My maiden surname, Hale, had been legally adopted from my grandmother’s side of the family, which kept Hawthorne out of routine searches.
But page forty-seven contained a note.
SUBJECT MAY HAVE CONNECTION TO HAWTHORNE FAMILY THROUGH MATERNAL LINE. UNCONFIRMED.
I looked up.
“You knew there was a connection.”
Adrian rubbed his face. “I thought it was distant.”
“And when banks started approving you?”
“I thought maybe you had some contacts.”
“Contacts.” I laughed. “So you kept me around until you didn’t need them anymore?”
“That’s not fair.”
Vanessa stepped forward. “He built Vale Meridian.”
Dad finally spoke. “With two hundred million dollars in indirect guarantees from entities my daughter asked me to support.”
Adrian looked at me.
I saw the exact moment he understood.
The warehouse loan in Ohio. The acquisition facility in Texas. The pension fund that suddenly invested after our anniversary dinner. The insurance syndicate that covered his riskiest expansion.
All of it.
He sank onto a chair.
“I thought I did that.”
“You did some of it,” I said. “You worked hard. You were smart. I never wanted to take that away from you.”
“Then why hide it?”
“Because I wanted to know whether you loved me when I wasn’t useful.”
Vanessa snorted. “That is insane.”
I looked at her. “You’re pregnant with my husband’s child. Maybe sit this one out.”
She flinched.
Miriam cleared her throat. “There’s more.”
She opened another file.
The private investigator had continued following me after the wedding.
Photos showed me leaving my gynecologist’s office eight months earlier.
Another document was attached: a medical billing summary.
My skin went cold.
“That’s private medical information.”
Adrian stood too fast. “I never saw that.”
Vanessa stepped backward.
Miriam looked from her to the file.
“Someone paid the investigator to obtain it.”
“Who?” I asked.
Miriam turned the tablet around.
May you like
The authorization line contained one name.
Vanessa Crane.
