Chapter 4 - The Money Sent Before the Wedding
Celeste insisted Ivory North Consulting wasn’t hers.
That was technically true.
The company registration listed a manager named Everett Sloan.
I had never heard the name.
Brooke had.
She sat down the moment she saw it.
“That’s bad.”
I looked at her.
“How bad?”
“Everett used to arrange private financing for hospitality acquisitions.”
“Used to?”
“He lost his brokerage license three years ago.”
Celeste pressed both hands against the table.
“I didn’t know that.”
Brooke stared at her.
“You asked a man who lost his license to help finance a company you didn’t own?”
“He told me he was working privately now.”
“Who introduced you?”
Celeste didn’t answer.
I knew immediately.
“The man with the blue folder.”
She looked at me.
“Yes.”
Finally.
A name began to emerge.
Not Everett.
The other man.
Derek Vale.
Forty-two.
Former commercial-development consultant.
He had worked for Rosemere for six months during our last expansion.
I fired him after discovering he had attempted to bill one contractor twice for the same renovation work.
I didn’t accuse him of criminal fraud because the duplicate invoice had been stopped before payment.
I simply ended the contract.
Celeste had defended him at the time.
I had forgotten that.
Now I remembered every word.
“He understands aggressive growth,” she had told me.
I had replied that I didn’t want aggressive growth if it required dishonest accounting.
Apparently Celeste had disagreed.
“Derek contacted me in February,” she admitted.
“What did he want?”
“He said Rosemere was wasting its value.”
I laughed without humor.
“So he convinced you to borrow against it?”
“Not exactly.”
Brooke turned the laptop toward Celeste.
“Then explain the $487,000.”
Celeste’s shoulders lowered.
“I needed a commitment deposit.”
“For what?”
“A second property.”
Nolan swore under his breath.
Celeste continued quickly.
“There’s an estate in Newport. Oceanfront. Forty guest rooms. Derek said if we could place a deposit before September, he could structure the purchase after I received my Rosemere equity.”
I stared at her.
“You were buying another venue with my company’s credit before becoming an owner?”
“I was building our future.”
“You were building yours.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Maisie is upstairs crying because you destroyed her wig on our wedding day.”
Celeste flinched.
Good.
She needed to.
Brooke opened the Ivory North bank memo.
The $487,000 had not been labeled as a deposit on real estate.
It was marked CONSULTING RETAINER.
“No legitimate acquisition uses this description,” she said.
Celeste stared.
“That’s what Derek told me to write.”
“You authorized the transfer?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
Nolan looked furious.
“You didn’t have signing authority.”
“I used the temporary financing portal.”
“There is no temporary portal.”
Celeste’s face shifted.
That surprised her.
Brooke asked for the login link Derek had provided.
Celeste found it in her email.
Nolan opened it on an isolated laptop.
The website looked exactly like the online banking page Rosemere used.
But it wasn’t.
One letter in the web address was different.
Phishing.
Celeste sat back.
“No.”
Brooke didn’t soften.
“You gave someone your credentials.”
“I don’t have credentials.”
“But you entered something.”
Celeste looked at me.
Dread replaced defensiveness.
“Grant’s information.”
My stomach tightened.
“What information?”
“Tax ID. Company registration. Some bank verification questions.”
“How did you get those?”
Silence.
I thought of fourteen unauthorized entries.
My office.
Records room.
Bank archive.
Derek hadn’t merely been helping Celeste prepare for future ownership.
They had been assembling enough information to impersonate Rosemere.
Brooke reached for her phone.
“We need the bank’s fraud department immediately.”
Celeste stood.
“I can get the money back.”
“Sit down,” I said.
“Grant—”
“Sit down.”
She did.
Audrey entered again.
Her face was pale.
“Grant.”
“What happened?”
“Maisie said something.”
I turned instantly.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes. She’s coloring with your sister.”
Audrey held out a folded sheet of children’s drawing paper.
Maisie had drawn the house in purple crayon.
Three stick figures stood outside.
A little one.
A tall one.
And a woman in a triangle dress.
Farther away stood a fourth figure beside a car.
Blue scribbles surrounded him.
“The blue-folder man?” I asked.
Audrey nodded.
“Maisie said he told Celeste something yesterday.”
“What?”
Audrey looked at Celeste.
Then back at me.
“She said he told her, ‘After tomorrow, Grant can’t undo it.’”
Celeste jumped up.
“He never said that to me.”
Audrey remained calm.
“Maisie heard him.”
Celeste shook her head.
“He said after the closing you wouldn’t want to undo it because it would hurt the business.”
“That isn’t what my daughter remembers.”
“She’s three.”
The words came out dismissively.
I saw Audrey’s expression harden.
Then Maisie appeared behind her holding my sister’s hand.
She looked directly at Celeste.
“No.”
The room became quiet.
Maisie rarely interrupted adults.
Celeste stared at her.
Maisie pointed toward Celeste’s wedding dress.
“He said you could make Daddy sign if everybody was watching.”
Nobody spoke.
Celeste went completely still.
That was no longer about financing.
That was pressure.
Public pressure.
A wedding with two hundred witnesses.
A business transfer scheduled for immediately afterward.
And a bride who had spent months arranging documents I had never approved.
Brooke opened the calendar attached to Celeste’s email.
She found a meeting scheduled for that night.
11:30 p.m.
After the reception.
DEREK — FINAL CONTROL PACKAGE.
I looked at Celeste.
“What exactly was supposed to happen after I signed?”
She didn’t answer.
Brooke clicked the attachment.
The first page loaded.
At the top were four words:
POST-CLOSING EXECUTIVE REMOVAL PLAN.
And the first person scheduled to lose access to Rosemere House wasn’t Audrey.
May you like
It was me.
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