Chapter 3 - The File Celeste Never Told Lydia AboutCeleste closed the laptop.
Lydia stared at her.
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
Celeste folded her hands.
“I did investigate Dorian before your wedding.”
Lydia’s face changed.
Marcus frowned.
“Why didn’t I know that?”
“Because it wasn’t your relationship.”
“It was mine,” Lydia said.
“Yes.”
“And you hired someone to investigate my fiancé?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me?”
“Yes.”
Dorian laughed softly.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Marcus looked at him.
“Don’t.”
Dorian raised both hands.
“I’m not the only person who manipulated Lydia.”
Celeste looked at her daughter.
“That statement contains enough truth to be dangerous.”
Lydia’s eyes filled.
“What did you find?”
Celeste stood.
She crossed to a locked cabinet behind the desk.
Opened it.
Removed a thin gray folder.
Not blue.
Gray.
She placed it beside the transfer documents.
Dorian’s expression shifted.
“You kept that?”
Celeste looked at him.
“You knew about it?”
Lydia turned.
Dorian immediately corrected himself.
“I assumed.”
Celeste opened the folder.
“Dorian told you he sold his software company for four-point-two million dollars before you met.”
Lydia nodded slowly.
“He did.”
“He did not.”
Dorian laughed.
“That is technically misleading.”
Marcus stared.
“How can selling a company be technically misleading?”
Dorian ignored him.
Celeste continued.
“The company collapsed seventeen months before you met.”
Lydia looked at Dorian.
“You told me you exited.”
“I did exit.”
“Because it failed?”
“It was complicated.”
“How much did you make?”
Dorian’s jaw tightened.
“Not four million.”
“How much?”
Silence.
Celeste answered.
“After debt?”
She looked at the report.
“Negative eight hundred and twelve thousand dollars.”
Lydia went pale.
“That’s impossible.”
Dorian stepped toward her.
“I repaid most of it.”
“With what?”
“Work.”
“What work?”
“Consulting.”
Celeste turned another page.
“Some.”
Dorian looked furious.
Celeste continued.
“More came from loans.”
Lydia remembered.
Dorian had told her he hated debt.
Claimed his parents lost their home when he was young.
He insisted they pay credit cards monthly.
“What loans?”
“Private.”
“From who?”
“People you don’t know.”
“Tell me.”
Dorian didn’t.
Celeste said:
“One was from Evan Cross.”
Dorian’s college friend.
Lydia knew him.
He had attended their wedding.
Smiled in nearly every photograph.
“He loaned you money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Dorian whispered:
“Around six hundred thousand.”
Lydia stared.
“Before we married?”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“I had it under control.”
Celeste looked at the blue folder.
“No.”
Lydia followed her gaze.
Northstar Bridge Capital.
Her stomach dropped.
“Evan owns Northstar.”
Dorian closed his eyes.
That was enough.
Marcus swore.
Lydia stepped backward.
“The six-point-eight million transfer was going to your friend.”
“It was an investment.”
“To repay your debt?”
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly?”
Dorian ran both hands over his face.
“Evan had access to opportunities.”
Celeste said:
“Evan Cross is under civil investigation in two states.”
Dorian snapped:
“Allegations.”
“For selling unregistered investment products.”
“Again. Allegations.”
Lydia looked at him.
“When were you going to tell me?”
“I was protecting you from details you didn’t need.”
She laughed.
A sharp sound.
“My money.”
“Our money.”
“No.”
Dorian stared.
Lydia repeated:
“My inheritance is not our money until I decide it is.”
His face hardened.
“That’s your mother talking.”
“No.”
Her voice rose.
“That’s me.”
Silence.
Celeste looked down.
Lydia turned to her.
“And you.”
Celeste lifted her eyes.
“You knew he lied about the company.”
“Yes.”
“Before I married him.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before the wedding.”
Lydia stared.
“No.”
“I asked you to meet me.”
“You said you wanted to discuss the prenup.”
“I wanted to discuss both.”
Lydia remembered.
She canceled that lunch after a fight with Celeste.
Who had encouraged her to cancel?
Dorian.
He said Celeste would spend two hours trying to scare her out of marriage.
Lydia’s stomach tightened.
“You sent me documents?”
“Yes.”
“I never got them.”
Dorian’s eyes shifted.
Celeste noticed.
“So did I,” Lydia said.
Celeste frowned.
“What?”
“I never received anything.”
“I couriered them to your apartment.”
Dorian looked toward the window.
Lydia saw it.
“You lived with me.”
He remained silent.
“Did you intercept them?”
“No.”
Celeste opened the gray file farther.
“There’s a delivery confirmation.”
She handed it to Lydia.
Signed:
D. HALE.
Lydia stared at his signature.
“You signed for my mother’s investigation.”
Dorian said:
“I was trying to prevent exactly this.”
“What?”
“Her poisoning you against me.”
“You hid evidence.”
“It wasn’t evidence.”
“It was information about the man I was about to marry.”
“You would have panicked.”
Lydia laughed through tears.
“You decided that for me.”
Dorian turned toward Celeste.
“And you decided she needed a private investigation.”
Celeste answered:
“Yes.”
“Control.”
“Yes.”
Again, that answer surprised everyone.
Celeste looked at Lydia.
“I was wrong not to tell you directly.”
Dorian smiled.
Celeste continued.
“But I was not wrong to be concerned.”
His smile disappeared.
Lydia stared at her mother.
“Why didn’t you tell me after the wedding?”
Celeste’s expression changed.
“Because you were happy.”
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
“You had proof my husband lied.”
“I had evidence that he lied about one financial history.”
“And debt.”
“Yes.”
“And Evan.”
“Yes.”
“Why stay silent?”
Celeste looked older suddenly.
“Because you told me if I interfered one more time, you would cut me out of your life.”
Lydia remembered saying it.
The night before the wedding.
She had screamed:
Stop trying to run my life.
If you cannot accept Dorian, you cannot have me.
Dorian had been beside her afterward.
Holding her.
Telling her she was finally choosing herself.
Lydia felt sick.
Celeste continued.
“I chose to remain close enough that if you needed me, you could come.”
Lydia whispered:
“And then?”
“Then I began seeing small things.”
“What things?”
“The distance between you and Marcus.”
Marcus frowned.
“The arguments you and I suddenly had over statements I never made.”
Lydia’s heart pounded.
“The email.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
Celeste looked at Dorian.
“Your husband has spent two years turning every disagreement in this family into evidence that someone is against him.”
Dorian laughed.
“You sound paranoid.”
Celeste met his eyes.
“Perhaps.”
Then she opened the gray folder to the final page.
“There is one item I never understood.”
Lydia looked.
A bank transfer.
$275,000.
Three days before her wedding.
From:
EVAN CROSS.
To:
DORIAN HALE.
Lydia stared.
Dorian said:
“Loan repayment.”
Celeste shook her head.
“No.”
Lydia looked at the notation.
CONSULTING — ASHFORD ACCESS.
Her stomach turned.
“What is Ashford Access?”
Nobody answered.
Then Marcus whispered:
“Oh, hell.”
He had seen the phrase before.
Six months earlier.
Inside a confidential family-office email.
May you like
And suddenly the investigation was no longer only about Dorian’s debt.
It was about how he had entered the Ashford family in the first place.
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