Chapter 3 - The Secret Behind the Sixty DishesNobody spoke for several seconds.
Even the fountain seemed unbearably loud.
Nathan Whitmore stood at the top of the mansion steps with a slim black laptop case in one hand and an expression that told me he hadn't come to celebrate his mother's birthday.
Daniel recovered first.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Nathan looked at him.
"Would you prefer I explained everything here?"
Margaret stepped between her sons.
"Absolutely not. This is my birthday. Whatever disagreement you two are having can wait."
Nathan gave a bitter laugh.
"You're worried about the party?"
"Nathan, lower your voice."
"Emily was just assaulted in front of your guests, Mother."
Margaret's expression hardened.
"You haven't been here long enough to understand what happened."
"I saw enough."
He looked toward the people gathered along the terrace.
"And someone sent me a video."
Daniel lunged forward.
"Who?"
One of my father's security officers moved slightly closer.
Nathan didn't flinch.
"Does it matter?"
"It matters when someone is secretly recording my family!"
I stared at Daniel.
He sounded angrier about the possibility of a recording than about what he'd done.
My father stepped beside me.
"Emily, you don't have to participate in this."
"I know."
I looked toward Nathan.
"But I want to hear him."
Nathan had always been the family outsider.
While Daniel loved luxury cars, expensive watches, and high-profile parties, Nathan preferred books, modest apartments, and quiet conversations.
Their father, Edward Whitmore, had once told me Nathan was the only person in the family who understood the value of money.
When Edward died, Daniel inherited control of Whitmore Development.
Nathan received a minority ownership interest and a position on the advisory board.
Within a year, he resigned.
Daniel told everyone Nathan was jealous.
Margaret called him disloyal.
Nathan moved to London, where he became a forensic accountant specializing in corporate restructuring.
Now, standing beneath the enormous stone columns, he looked exhausted.
"I received a package four weeks ago," he said.
Daniel shook his head.
"You're lying."
"It contained internal financial statements, invoices, and copies of authorization records."
"Stolen documents."
"Possibly. That's one reason I contacted counsel rather than publishing them."
Rebecca nodded.
"That was appropriate."
Nathan looked at my father.
"I didn't know Carter Capital was conducting its own review until yesterday. I had already begun examining the material."
Margaret crossed her arms.
"Well, whoever sent it was clearly trying to destroy our family."
Nathan's eyes filled with something like sadness.
"Mother, have you even asked whether the records are accurate?"
"They're not!"
"How would you know?"
She stopped.
Daniel looked away.
Something passed between them.
I noticed it immediately.
"You knew," I whispered.
Margaret's gaze returned to me.
"Don't be absurd."
"You knew there was something wrong with the company."
Her silence answered more than her words could have.
Nathan opened his case and removed a folder.
"I have documents concerning a company called Magnolia Heritage Consulting."
Daniel swore under his breath.
Nathan continued.
"According to the records, Whitmore Development paid Magnolia more than two million dollars over the last three years."
I felt cold.
"Two million?"
"The invoices describe community outreach, promotional services, and strategic planning."
My father turned to Thomas.
"Is that consistent with what your review found?"
Thomas nodded.
"It's among the transactions being examined."
Nathan continued.
"Magnolia Heritage's registered manager appears to be a woman named Victoria Lane."
Daniel looked as though he might be sick.
I knew that name.
I'd seen it on his phone.
Two years earlier, Victoria Lane had called him late one evening.
When I asked who she was, Daniel said she was a commercial real estate broker.
A month later, I found a diamond bracelet receipt in his jacket.
He claimed it was a client gift.
I had wanted to believe him.
"Victoria?" I whispered.
Nathan looked at me.
"You know her?"
"Daniel said she was a business associate."
Daniel stepped toward me.
"Emily, don't start."
I turned.
"Is she your mistress?"
His mouth opened.
No answer came.
Margaret scoffed.
"Men have private business relationships, Emily. You wouldn't understand."
My father looked directly at her.
"Mrs. Whitmore, I suggest you stop speaking to my daughter that way."
Margaret smiled tightly.
"Mr. Carter, with all due respect, marriage is complicated."
"Assault isn't complicated."
She looked away.
Rebecca asked Nathan whether he would preserve the documents and provide them through appropriate legal channels.
He agreed.
Then my father turned to me.
"We need to get you medical attention."
This time, I didn't resist.
But before leaving, I looked at Margaret.
"Why did you cancel the catering?"
Her face darkened.
"I already told you."
"No. You said you wanted sixty dishes. But you planned a three-hundred-thousand-dollar birthday party. You hired musicians, decorators, and bartenders. Why cancel the people who were supposed to prepare the food?"
Margaret shifted.
"It was my decision."
Nathan looked at her strangely.
"Mother, did Daniel ask you to cancel them?"
Daniel spun toward him.
"Nathan!"
I stared at my husband.
"Did you?"
He clenched his jaw.
"That has nothing to do with anything."
But suddenly I understood.
The canceled catering.
The impossible menu.
Margaret's insistence that I remain in the kitchen.
Daniel's unusual anger when I said no.
It hadn't simply been a humiliating family tradition.
They had wanted me exhausted, distracted, and away from the other guests.
"Why?" I whispered.
Neither answered.
Nathan opened his folder again.
"Emily, were you asked to sign anything this morning?"
My heartbeat quickened.
I remembered Daniel arriving in the kitchen at approximately ten-thirty.
He'd placed a tablet beside the cutting board.
"Just approve this," he'd said. "It's the renewal for our home insurance."
I was chopping vegetables.
When I told him I couldn't read it properly with wet hands, he became angry.
Then Margaret appeared with another list of dishes.
Everything had happened so quickly.
"I didn't sign it," I said.
Nathan exhaled.
"Thank God."
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
"What exactly are you suggesting?"
Nathan looked at him.
"That you needed Emily's electronic authorization before a deadline."
Rebecca stepped forward.
"Deadline for what?"
Nathan hesitated.
Then he looked at my father.
"A financing certification connected to a twenty-eight-million-dollar bridge facility."
Thomas muttered something beneath his breath.
Rebecca's expression became serious.
"Was that certification required today?"
Nathan nodded.
"By four o'clock."
I glanced at my phone.
It was 3:41.
Daniel saw me checking the time.
For the first time since my father arrived, he looked genuinely desperate.
"Emily," he said softly, "can we talk privately?"
I stepped backward.
"No."
"Please. This doesn't have to become a disaster."
"Daniel, you pulled me across the floor."
His eyes filled with tears.
"I lost my temper."
"You've been losing your temper for six years."
"Baby, please."
The word made my skin crawl.
Then his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen.
His expression changed.
He declined the call.
It rang again immediately.
Nathan looked at the phone.
"Is that Victoria?"
Daniel shoved it into his pocket.
"Mind your business."
A third call came.
This time, a message flashed across the screen before he could hide it.
I couldn't read the entire sentence.
But I saw four words.
SHE KNOWS ABOUT THE ACCOUNT.
My father gently touched my shoulder.
"Emily, we're leaving."
I nodded.
As I walked toward the SUV, Daniel shouted behind me.
"If you leave, you'll destroy everything we've built!"
I turned one last time.
"No, Daniel."
My voice sounded strange, even to me.
"You already did that."
At the hospital, a doctor documented my injuries and ordered additional examinations because of the impact to my head.
A police officer took my statement.
I told her the truth.
All of it.
Not just about today.
I told her about the first time Daniel shoved me into a bedroom door.
The night he smashed my phone because I refused to cancel dinner with a friend.
The time he locked me outside during a thunderstorm.
How he always apologized afterward.
How he always promised it wouldn't happen again.
The officer listened carefully.
Then she asked whether there were any weapons in our home or threats I hadn't mentioned.
I answered her questions as best I could.
By the time my statement was finished, darkness had fallen.
My father sat beside my hospital bed.
He had removed his jacket and loosened his tie.
For the first time in years, he looked old.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
I turned toward him.
"For what?"
"For not knowing."
"Daddy, I worked very hard to make sure you didn't."
He looked down.
"I should have visited more."
"I kept telling you not to."
He squeezed my hand.
"You don't have to protect me anymore."
I started crying.
Because that was exactly what I had been doing.
Protecting my father from worry.
Protecting Daniel from consequences.
Protecting Margaret from embarrassment.
Protecting everybody except myself.
Then Rebecca entered the room.
Her expression was grave.
"Alexander, Emily, I'm afraid there's been another development."
My father stood.
"What happened?"
Rebecca looked directly at me.
"Someone attempted to access your personal trust account twenty minutes ago."
I felt my stomach drop.
"Who?"
Rebecca paused.
"Your husband."
"And?"
"The attempt failed."
I closed my eyes in relief.
But Rebecca hadn't finished.
"Emily, we believe the reason he wanted that signature may be even worse than we initially suspected."
She placed a document on the bedside table.
At the bottom was a signature.
My name.
Written in handwriting that looked almost exactly like mine.
May you like
And beside it was a date from five months earlier.
The day Daniel told me he was taking me away for a romantic anniversary vacation.
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