Chapter 4 - THE LOAN AGREEMENT
Nora shut her office door.
“I own the venue.”
Mr. Hale nodded.
“We confirmed that.”
Daniel stared at the message.
“Then what’s he talking about?”
Nora’s expression tightened.
“The renovation loan.”
Three years earlier, my father had helped Nora restore the old estate.
He had lent her money through a separate holding company.
When he died, Vanessa and I inherited equal interests in that company.
I knew there was a loan.
I didn’t know Vanessa had been contacting Nora about it.
“She said the company wanted early repayment,” Nora said.
“When?”
“Last month. Then again Tuesday.”
“Did she put it in writing?”
Nora opened a drawer.
Mr. Hale read the letter once.
Then again.
“This isn’t an early repayment notice.”
Nora’s face drained.
“What is it?”
“A proposed assignment. She wanted you to acknowledge that another company would take over the loan.”
June leaned closer.
“Bell Consulting.”
Daniel braced both hands on the desk.
Vanessa hadn’t just been pulling money from our event business.
She had been trying to move a valuable loan to her husband’s company.
Without telling me.
Without asking for my approval.
Nora looked toward the ballroom.
“I didn’t sign it.”
“Good,” Mr. Hale said.
“She told me Claire already had.”
I laughed once.
It hurt coming out.
“She says that a lot.”
Lena appeared carrying a garment bag.
“I found your rehearsal dress.”
The simple ivory dress I had worn the night before had been waiting in my overnight room.
No lace.
No long train.
No reason for Vanessa to touch it.
Daniel looked at me.
“We can cancel.”
From the ballroom came a low wave of conversation.
Two hundred guests wondering what had happened.
My sister among them, probably telling a story that made her the funny one and me the difficult one.
“No,” I said.
“But we don’t have to pretend everything’s fine.”
I changed behind Nora’s folding screen.
Lena pinned my hair back into place.
My mother watched without offering to help.
When I stepped out, Daniel smiled for the first time since entering the suite.
“There you are.”
Then Nora’s phone rang.
The designer.
She listened, wrote something down, and passed the phone to Mr. Hale.
His expression hardened.
When he hung up, he looked at me.
“The designer received an email this morning authorizing permanent alterations to the sample.”
“I didn’t send one.”
“I know.”
He turned his phone around.
The email included a signed authorization.
My name.
May you like
My handwriting.
And the signature I had put on my marriage-license application.
