Chapter 5: What Victoria Knew
Adrian left Clara and Mia in the care of his cousin Ruth, who had found them in the coat room with the quiet efficiency of a woman who had managed family crises before and expected to manage them again.
"They stay here," Adrian told Ruth.
"Nobody comes in unless I send them."
Ruth looked at the two children, then back at Adrian.
"Go," she said simply.
Victoria was waiting in the venue manager's office — a small room with a desk and two chairs and a window that looked out onto the car park.
She had taken off her veil.
It was folded on the desk in front of her.
She looked, for the first time that day, like a person rather than a performance.
Adrian closed the door behind him.
"Talk," he said.
"Sit down."
"Talk."
Victoria's jaw tightened.
She stood up.
"Fine.
You want to stand, we stand." She moved to the window.
"What I did with Elena — I know how it looks.
I know what you think of me right now.
But there are things about her you never knew.
Things she hid from you deliberately."
"Such as."
"She contacted me first." Victoria turned to face him.
"Before I ever called her.
She reached out to me.
She knew we were together.
She knew I was serious about you.
And she told me — she told me she was going to use the pregnancy to take everything from you.
Her words, Adrian.
I have the messages."
Adrian said nothing.
"She said your family's money was the only reason she stayed as long as she did.
She said the baby was her insurance policy." Victoria's voice was steady, practiced.
"I was protecting you.
I made a judgment call.
I was wrong to do it the way I did, I can see that now, but I was trying to—"
"Show me the messages," Adrian said.
Victoria blinked.
"What?"
"You said you have messages.
Show them to me."
A pause.
"I'd have to find them.
It was years ago.
I'd need to—"
"You brought this up as evidence thirty seconds ago.
Show me the messages."
Victoria's hand moved to her phone.
Then stopped.
"I'll need some time to—"
"You don't have them," Adrian said.
"I do have them, I just—"
"Victoria." His voice didn't rise.
"I knew Elena for two years.
I know who she was.
She grew up with nothing.
She worked two jobs while she finished her degree.
She sent money home to her mother every month without fail.
She was not a person who used people." He paused.
"But you are."
Victoria's expression shifted.
The reasonableness fell away.
"You're going to throw away everything we have," she said, "for a dead woman and two children you met twenty minutes ago?"
"One of those children is my daughter."
"You don't know that."
The room went very quiet.
"A DNA test will settle that in forty-eight hours," Adrian said.
"But I looked at that baby's face, and I don't need a test to know.
And neither do you.
That's why you tried to drag them out before I could see her."
Victoria said nothing.
"What I want to know," Adrian said, "is whether you knew Elena was sick.
Whether you knew she was alone with a newborn and a nine-year-old and no support.
Whether you knew any of that and still said nothing."
Victoria looked at the folded veil on the desk.
"I didn't know she was sick," she said finally.
"But you knew she was alone."
Silence.
"You knew she had the baby," Adrian said.
"Because you knew the pregnancy was real.
You knew because you made that call.
You told her I was gone.
And then you watched me plan a wedding and you said nothing."
"What was I supposed to say?"
"The truth." He picked up his jacket from the chair.
"Four years ago.
Or last year.
Or this morning.
Any of those would have worked."
He walked to the door.
"Adrian." Victoria's voice cracked for the first time.
"If you walk out of here, I will make this very difficult for you.
My father has lawyers.
We have a contract — the venue, the vendors, the—"
"Bill me," Adrian said.
He opened the door and walked out.
Behind him, Victoria stood alone in the office with her folded veil and her dead leverage and the silence of a plan that had finally run out of road.
But as Adrian walked back down the corridor toward Ruth and the children, his phone buzzed again.
A different number this time.
A name he didn't recognize.
The message read: *Mr.
Calloway.
My name is Daniel Reeves.
I was Elena's doctor.
She asked me to contact you if anything happened to her.
I've been trying to reach you for six weeks.
There is something you need to know — something beyond the children.
Please call me.*
Adrian stopped walking.
May you like
He read the message again.
Something beyond the children.
