Chapter 9: What Vivienne Knew
He didn't put it on speaker this time.
I watched his face instead.
It stayed mostly still — that same quality of careful control — but twice something moved through it that I couldn't name.
Not pain exactly.
Something older than pain.
"I understand," he said.
Then, after a pause: "I know you did." Then: "Mom.
Stop." Then silence for a long time while she talked.
My mom and I sat quietly.
Grace had moved to the far end of the room and was reading something on her phone, giving him space.
"I'm not asking you to choose," he said finally.
"I'm telling you what I did and why I did it.
That's different." Another pause.
"Because sixty-three people lost their savings, Mom.
That's why." His voice didn't rise.
"I know.
I know it's complicated.
But it's not complicated enough."
He listened again.
"I'm not coming over tonight." A pause.
"No.
Not tonight." He looked at the table.
"I'll call you in a few days."
He ended the call and sat for a moment without speaking.
"She's angry?" I said.
"She's frightened." He set the phone down.
"She kept saying she'd tried to protect me from knowing.
That she'd kept me away from the business side deliberately so I wouldn't have to carry it." He paused.
"She said she thought she was doing me a kindness."
"Did you believe her?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"I believe she believed it," he said.
"Whether it was really kindness or whether it was just easier — I don't know.
Maybe both."
Grace came back to the table.
"The asset freeze application has been filed," she said.
"A judge will review it this afternoon.
If it's granted — and based on what we submitted, I expect it will be — Richard will be formally notified within the hour after that." She looked at Daniel.
"His attorney will call you.
Don't answer.
Let it go to voicemail and send the voicemail to me."
"All right."
"There's one more thing I need to tell you both." She sat down.
"Stuart Peel moved approximately four hundred thousand pounds last night.
We've flagged the accounts, but that money is likely gone.
It represents a portion of what we hoped to recover for the investors." She paused.
"I want you to know that, so you understand the full picture.
What you gave us this morning still recovers the majority.
But not everything."
Daniel nodded.
"How many of the sixty-three will be made whole?"
"Best estimate — forty to forty-five.
The rest will recover partial amounts.
Some of the older accounts — the ones from before 2019 — may be harder to trace."
He absorbed that.
"Is there anything else I can do?"
"You've done what was needed," Grace said.
"The rest is legal process."
---
We left the office at four.
The city was doing what cities do in the late afternoon — full of people going home, carrying bags, talking on phones, living ordinary lives that had nothing to do with any of this.
Daniel and I walked for a while without talking.
"Are you all right?" I said eventually.
"I don't know yet," he said honestly.
"I think I will be.
I just need a little time to know what I actually feel about all of it." He looked at the pavement.
"I keep thinking about the sixty-three.
I keep trying to put faces on them."
"You didn't do this to them."
"No.
But I could have stopped it sooner if I'd moved faster."
"You moved when you were sure.
That's not the same as being slow."
He glanced at me sideways.
"Your mother said something similar this morning."
"She's been right about most things so far."
He almost smiled.
"She has," he said.
We stopped at the corner where we needed to go different directions — him back to his flat, me back to mine.
We'd agreed to spend the evening separately, to let the day settle.
He turned to face me.
"I need to ask you something," he said.
"All right."
"After all of this — my father, my mother, what's coming — do you still want to marry into this?"
I looked at him.
"I'm not marrying into your family," I said.
"I'm marrying you."
He held my gaze.
"That might not feel like a distinction to some people."
"It does to me."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he leaned forward and pressed his forehead briefly against mine.
"Okay," he said softly.
He straightened up, looked at me once more, and walked away down the street.
I stood there for a moment.
Then I called my mom.
She answered on the second ring.
"Are you all right?" she said.
"Yes," I said.
"Are you?"
"I'm fine, love.
I'm home.
I'm making tea."
"Mom — thank you.
For all of it.
For the dress, for Grace, for tonight, for everything."
A pause.
"You don't need to thank me for any of that," she said.
"That's just being your mother."
I started walking.
May you like
"Can I come over?"
"The kettle's already on," she said.
