And I saw tears gathering in his eyes.
That made it worse.
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Which part?”
He swallowed.
“Claire—”
“WHICH PART?”
My voice cracked through the speakers.
He looked down.
“The beginning wasn’t.”
Something inside me went absolutely still.
Around us, three hundred guests became ghosts.
There was only Daniel.
The man who had proposed to me beneath the cedar trees at my father’s old lake house.
The man who knew I hated raisins and loved thunderstorms.
The man who warmed my side of the bed when I worked late.
The man who once drove four hours because I’d mentioned that my mother’s birthday dinner had ended with me crying alone in my car.
The man who had held my face and said, With me, you never have to earn the right to be loved.
“Explain,” I whispered.
Daniel looked at my mother.
She stared back at him with a warning so cold it could have stopped a heart.
And that’s when I understood something.
He was afraid of her.
“Six months before we met,” he said, “Vivienne contacted me.”
Daniel was a corporate attorney specializing in mergers and shareholder disputes. He had left a major firm two years before we met.
Or so he’d told me.
“She said she needed someone to evaluate whether you planned to force her out of Meridian.”
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“Meridian is my company.”
“I know.”
“Then why would you be evaluating me?”
My mother finally spoke.
“Because you were preparing to destroy everything your family built.”
I stared at her.
“My family didn’t build Meridian.”
She stiffened.
“I did.”
I’d started the company at twenty-six with eighty thousand dollars I’d saved, borrowed and nearly worked myself sick earning.
My mother had introduced me to exactly two early investors, then spent eight years telling people she’d created my career.
Daniel continued.
“She believed you were considering an audit.”
I froze.
I had been.
Eighteen months earlier, I’d noticed irregular transfers involving a side investment company my mother chaired.
Nothing enormous individually.
Forty thousand dollars.
Seventy-three thousand.
One hundred and twelve thousand.
But together they formed a pattern.
I’d mentioned the inconsistencies once at Christmas.
My mother had laughed.
Three weeks later, I met Daniel.
My throat closed.
“You approached me because she wanted information.”
“Yes.”
The single word landed harder than any scream.
“How much?”
“Claire—”
“How much did she pay you?”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand.”
A woman in the front row covered her mouth.
I stared at Daniel.
“You were paid a quarter of a million dollars to date me?”
“No. I was paid to consult.”
“You met me in a coffee shop.”
“I knew you’d be there.”
I almost dropped the microphone.
Our first meeting.
The ridiculous argument over the last walnut croissant.
His spilled espresso.
The napkin on which he’d written his number.
The story we’d told a hundred times because everyone said it sounded like a romantic comedy.
It had been staged.
Even our beginning belonged to my mother.
My vision blurred.
“Was the proposal staged too?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
His voice broke.
“I don’t expect you to believe anything I say.”
