Chapter 3
My father had been dead for eleven years.
At least, that was what I believed.
I stared at Mom.
“What do you mean she knows about Dad?”
Mom looked exhausted.
Her gray hair was still damp around her temples.
“Nathaniel, shut the door.”
I did.
Then I pulled the chair closer.
“Tell me everything.”
She took a long breath.
“Your father left more than the company.”
I frowned.
My father, Charles Whitmore, had founded Whitmore Hospitality with one small hotel outside Boston.
By the time he died, we owned twenty-three properties.
I had spent the last decade expanding that number to sixty-one.
His estate had been complicated, but not mysterious.
At least I thought it hadn’t been.
“What did he leave?”
“A trust.”
“I know about the family trust.”
“Not that one.”
My pulse quickened.
Mom looked ashamed.
“There was a private trust created six months before he died.”
“For who?”
“You.”
I leaned back.
“That makes no sense.”
“It was designed to transfer when you turned forty.”
“I turned forty last month.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Because your father asked me not to until the trustees contacted me.”
I stood.
“How much?”
Mom hesitated.
“How much, Mom?”
“Approximately eighty-six million dollars.”
I sat down again.
For several seconds, I couldn’t hear anything except the monitor beside her bed.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“Eighty-six million?”
“Mostly shares and property.”
“And Isabella knows?”
“She found one of the trustee letters.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
But I did.
Or at least I knew where to start.
Isabella had been living in my penthouse for eight months.
She had access to my office.
My files.
My mail.
My schedule.
Everything.
Mom squeezed my hand.
“There’s another condition.”
I closed my eyes.
“Of course there is.”
“If you die before taking control, the trust follows the beneficiary instructions in your estate plan.”
My eyes opened.
My estate plan.
Updated four months earlier.
At Isabella’s suggestion.
The room suddenly felt very small.
“Mom.”
“I know.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped across the floor.
“My will names Isabella.”
“As primary beneficiary.”
I remembered signing it.
Not because Isabella pressured me.
At least I hadn’t thought she had.
We were engaged.
We were planning children.
She had cried when I told her I wanted her protected if something happened to me.
I had believed I was building a family.
Maybe she had been building something else.
“Why would she hurt you?”
Mom’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because I told her I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I saw the letter last week. She had left it on your desk. I asked why she had opened something addressed to you.”
“And?”
“She said you asked her to.”
“I didn’t.”
“I knew that.”
Mom swallowed.
“So I started looking.”
“You went through her things?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t apologize.
“I found bank statements. Transfers from one of your household accounts into a consulting company.”
“What company?”
“Belladonna Strategies.”
I had never heard of it.
“How much?”
“Almost four hundred thousand dollars.”
My jaw tightened.
“Mom, why didn’t you call me?”
“You were in Singapore.”
“That has never stopped you.”
“She told me if I accused her without proof, she would convince you I was becoming confused.”
I thought of the terrace.
Evelyn is confused, Nathaniel.
The words hit differently now.
“She’d been setting that up.”
Mom nodded.
“For months.”
I remembered Isabella mentioning Mom forgetting a restaurant reservation.
Misplacing her glasses.
Repeating a story at dinner.
Small things.
Normal things.
But Isabella had always said them with concern.
Maybe too much concern.
“She wanted me to doubt you.”
“Yes.”
I felt sick.
Mom looked toward the window.
“This afternoon I told her I had copies of the bank transfers.”
“You confronted her?”
“I wanted her to leave before you came home.”
“Mom.”
“I know it was foolish.”
“No. It was dangerous.”
“I didn’t know how dangerous until she took my phone.”
Mom started trembling again.
I sat beside her.
“What happened on the roof?”
“She told me you would never believe an old woman over your future wife.”
I clenched my fists.
“She said once you were married, the penthouse would be hers too.”
Mom’s voice cracked.
“Then she told me I had three weeks to learn my place.”
I couldn’t speak.
“I told her the wedding would never happen once you saw the statements.”
“What did she do?”
“She smiled.”
Mom stared straight ahead.
“She walked toward the jacuzzi and said I looked tense.”
My stomach turned.
“She pushed you?”
“Not at first.”
Mom’s breathing became shallow.
“She grabbed my phone. I tried to take it back. She moved toward the security panel and turned the cameras off.”
“Then?”
“I told her I was leaving.”
Mom shut her eyes.
“She grabbed my robe from behind.”
I felt my nails cutting into my palms.
“She said, ‘You should have stayed out of this.’”
I leaned closer.
“And then?”
“She shoved me into the water.”
The words landed with terrifying simplicity.
Not slipped.
Not froze.
Shoved.
“She held the robe.”
“What?”
“When I tried to climb out.”
Mom’s voice broke.
“She stepped on the belt of my robe.”
I stopped breathing.
“She kept me from standing.”
I stood.
“I’m calling the police.”
“Nathaniel.”
“I should have called them from the roof.”
“We need the proof.”
“We have the video.”
“It stops before she pushes me.”
“Your statement matters.”
“She’ll say I fell.”
“Then we’ll find more.”
I pulled out my phone.
There were twenty-three missed calls.
Eleven from Isabella.
Four from her mother.
Three from an unknown number.
Five from my attorney, Daniel Mercer.
That caught my attention.
Daniel never called five times unless the building was burning.
I called him.
He answered before the first ring finished.
“Nathaniel.”
“What happened?”
“Where are you?”
“With my mother at St. Vincent’s.”
“Is Isabella with you?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Good.”
My skin prickled.
“Daniel.”
“I need you to listen carefully.”
“I’m listening.”
“Do not sign anything.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“No, I mean anything. No electronic documents. No courier envelopes. Nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because someone filed a request this afternoon to accelerate transfer of your father’s private trust.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“That’s impossible. I didn’t even know it existed until tonight.”
“I know.”
“Who filed it?”
Another pause.
“The request was submitted using your electronic signature.”
Mom stared at me.
I put the phone on speaker.
“I didn’t submit anything.”
Daniel exhaled.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“What did it say?”
“It claimed you wanted immediate distribution into a newly created marital holding company.”
I felt cold.
“What company?”
“Whitmore-Bianchi Holdings.”
Bianchi.
Isabella’s last name.
Mom covered her mouth.
“When was it created?”
“Six days ago.”
I stared at the hospital wall.
Three weeks before our wedding.
A secret company.
My signature.
My father’s trust.
This wasn’t impulsive.
This was planned.
“Daniel, freeze everything.”
“I already contacted the trustees.”
“And the household accounts.”
“I can have forensic accounting started by morning.”
“Do it.”
“Nathaniel, there’s something else.”
I almost laughed.
“There’s always something else tonight.”
Daniel’s voice lowered.
“The formation papers for Whitmore-Bianchi Holdings list two directors.”
“Isabella and me?”
“No.”
I waited.
“Isabella and a man named Adrian Cole.”
I had never heard the name.
Mom had.
The color vanished from her face.
She whispered, “Oh, God.”
I turned toward her.
“You know him?”
She didn’t answer.
“Mom.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Nathaniel, Adrian Cole was at your father’s funeral.”
My chest tightened.
“So?”
She looked at me.
“He wasn’t there as a friend.”
“Then who was he?”
May you like
Mom’s next words left me completely still.
“He was your father’s illegitimate son.”
