Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO THOUGHT SHE WAS REPLACING ME
Cassandra called me the next morning.
I almost didn't answer.
Then she sent a message.
Julian lied to both of us.
I agreed to meet her in a private conference room.
She arrived without the cashmere coat.
Without the emerald.
Without the confidence she had worn in the lobby.
Her face looked different without Julian standing beside her.
Younger.
More frightened.
More human.
That didn't make me like her.
But it reminded me that there were different degrees of guilt.
Cassandra placed her phone on the table.
"I thought JR Crown was his money."
"Where did you think one hundred twenty million dollars came from?"
"Investors."
"Which investors?"
"He never told me."
"And that didn't concern you?"
She looked away.
"It should have."
"Yes."
Cassandra swallowed.
"He said your marriage was over."
I said nothing.
"He said you had separate lives."
"Did we look separated when you joined us for dinner in Paris four months ago?"
Her face colored.
"No."
"Did we look separated when you attended our anniversary gala?"
"No."
"Then don't insult me by pretending you didn't know what you were doing."
Her eyes filled, but I didn't soften the words.
She deserved the truth too.
"I knew I was having an affair with a married man."
She nodded.
"But I didn't know about the money."
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because he called me last night."
She unlocked her phone.
The recording lasted three minutes and forty-two seconds.
Julian's voice filled the room.
He told Cassandra to delete their messages.
Move money from a joint development account.
Destroy a laptop.
Leave the country if necessary.
Cassandra refused.
Then Julian said something that changed the entire investigation.
If Elena gets the old Monaco file, we're finished.
I stopped the recording.
"What Monaco file?"
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Yes."
She pushed the phone toward me.
"Because I want you to find it before he does."
Within two hours, Daniel's team began searching archive references to Monaco.
We had operated a resort partnership there for four years.
Nothing obvious appeared.
Then one junior accountant found an old insurance settlement involving a failed acquisition.
Seven years earlier, Marlowe Hospitality had attempted to purchase a historic waterfront property.
The transaction collapsed after $11 million in escrow disappeared through what had been described as fraudulent interference by an overseas intermediary.
The company had absorbed the loss.
My grandfather had considered it the most embarrassing failure of his final years.
Julian had handled the transaction.
I remembered comforting him afterward.
He had blamed himself for trusting the wrong broker.
He had cried in my arms.
I had told him money didn't matter.
I had told him I still believed in him.
Now investigators traced the missing escrow through six entities.
The final beneficiary was hidden.
But the company registration date matched another event.
Three weeks after the Monaco deal collapsed, Julian quietly purchased his first major personal asset.
A thirty-two-million-dollar yacht.
At the time, he told me it had been financed through performance bonuses and private investors.
I had believed him.
Daniel entered the room holding a printout.
"We found the beneficiary."
I stood.
"Who?"
He hesitated.
"The original account was controlled by Rossi Private Holdings."
Cassandra covered her mouth.
I felt nothing.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
Julian hadn't accidentally lost my family's money.
He had stolen it.
Seven years earlier.
Before Cassandra.
Before the forged financing agreements.
Before the lobby.
The man I had loved had been robbing my family while sleeping beside me.
My father entered thirty minutes later.
I showed him the file.
He read it in silence.
Then he sat down.
I had never seen Thomas Marlowe look old before.
That morning, he did.
"He was at Eleanor's funeral."
My father stared at Julian's signature.
"He stood beside you."
I remembered.
Julian had held my hand through the entire service.
He had told everyone my grandmother had treated him like a son.
Three months later, he apparently began moving stolen funds through the same offshore structure.
My father looked at me.
"I am sorry."
"For what?"
"For ever giving him authority."
I shook my head.
"We both trusted him."
My father glanced toward Cassandra.
"And now?"
I closed the Monaco file.
"Now we stop treating this as a family betrayal."
I turned to Margaret.
"Refer everything to the appropriate authorities."
Margaret nodded.
Cassandra looked at me.
"Will I be charged?"
"I don't know."
That was the truth.
"But if you knew about any illegal transaction, tell your lawyer now."
She nodded.
Then she whispered.
"I thought I was replacing you."
I looked at her.
Cassandra's eyes filled with shame.
"I thought he chose me because I was better."
I picked up my grandmother's pendant.
"No."
"He chose you because he thought you would help him become untouchable."
May you like
That afternoon, Julian learned that the investigation was no longer staying inside our boardroom.
And for the first time, he disappeared.
