Chapter 3 - The Plan to Frame Me
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Chloe laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was accepting what she had just heard.
“My mother told you to frame Vivienne?”
Amanda started sobbing.
“Yes.”
Eleanor stepped forward.
“She’s lying.”
Amanda flinched.
“No.”
“You told me it would teach her a lesson.”
Eleanor’s voice sharpened.
“You ungrateful little—”
Dad raised one hand.
“Enough.”
Eleanor glared at him.
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“My daughter was publicly accused of theft inside my hotel.”
Dad said.
“It has quite a lot to do with me.”
The police separated Amanda and Eleanor.
Chloe stood in the middle of the ballroom looking lost.
Her wedding reception had become an evidence scene.
The ring was recovered from Amanda’s purse.
Worth slightly less than Chloe had claimed.
Nine hundred thousand dollars.
Still enough to turn the accusation into something serious.
Amanda agreed to speak.
Eleanor did not.
We moved into a private conference suite upstairs.
I changed into a hotel robe while a physician examined me.
My blood pressure was elevated.
The baby’s heartbeat remained strong.
I was instructed to rest.
I did not.
Not yet.
Dominic waited outside.
I did not let him in.
Dad sat beside me.
“You should have called sooner.”
I looked at him.
“I thought I could handle them.”
“I know.”
“That is not always the same as having to.”
I looked down.
For years, I had avoided using my family name because I wanted Dominic’s family to accept me without being impressed by money.
What I learned instead was that they treated people according to perceived value.
My father had warned me.
I had called him cynical.
Now he was being kind enough not to remind me.
Mara Ellis, our family attorney, entered with a tablet.
“Amanda is talking.”
“What did Eleanor want?”
Mara sat.
“Initially, humiliation.”
“Only initially?”
My stomach tightened.
Mara nodded.
Amanda said Eleanor wanted the ring planted in my purse.
Then Chloe would accuse me publicly.
Police would be called.
Photographs would circulate.
Even if the charge eventually disappeared, the scandal would remain.
Why?
Because Dominic had filed a confidential petition two weeks earlier.
I stared at her.
“What petition?”
Mara’s expression hardened.
“Postnuptial financial separation.”
My face went cold.
Dad said nothing.
Mara continued.
“Dominic claims you concealed substantial premarital assets.”
“That your marriage was entered under false financial pretenses.”
I almost laughed.
“He thought I was poor.”
“Yes.”
“So now discovering I’m wealthy is somehow fraud?”
“That argument is weak.”
“But apparently someone wanted you publicly discredited before the financial proceedings became active.”
I looked toward the door.
Dominic.
He knew enough to file papers.
Yet he had stayed silent while his family searched me.
Mara continued.
“There’s another issue.”
She opened a scanned document.
A trust summary.
WHITMORE FAMILY MATERNAL SUCCESSION PROVISION.
My hand moved to my stomach.
“What is that doing in Dominic’s file?”
Mara looked at Dad.
Then at me.
“That is exactly what we need to find out.”
The document described a trust connected to my unborn child.
One Dominic had never been told about.
May you like
One Eleanor should never have known existed.
Someone inside the Whitmore organization had given them confidential inheritance information.
