Chapter 8 - The Developer Never Asked Celeste To Pressure Anyone
For several days, I assumed Celeste had been acting at the developer’s request.
She hadn’t.
Their representatives were horrified when attorneys contacted them.
They had submitted a nonbinding proposal.
That was it.
Their project manager had even written:
Any parcel acquisition must be fully voluntary and individually negotiated.
Celeste had taken an opportunity and turned it into a mission.
Why?
Because she had recently joined Mercer Property Holdings’ strategy committee.
If the development transaction closed, she believed it would prove she deserved a larger permanent role in managing family assets.
She wanted legitimacy.
Influence.
A seat that no one could dismiss as merely “Grant’s wife.”
I understood that insecurity.
The Mercer family could be difficult.
Old money creates invisible ranking systems.
Some relatives never fully treated Celeste as independent from me.
That explained why the deal mattered so much to her.
It did not excuse what she did.
Explanation is not absolution.
Celeste had been trying to secure her place in the family by convincing a six-year-old girl that hers was disappearing.
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That contradiction eventually became impossible for me to overlook.
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