Chapter 4 - THE GROOM WHO NEVER LOVED MEI didn’t sleep.
At 6:10 the next morning, I stood on the guesthouse porch watching the California sky turn pale pink above the trees.
Sophie came outside carrying two mugs.
“Coffee.”
“I’m going to be sick if I drink that.”
“Then hold it dramatically.”
I almost laughed.
Almost.
She handed me the mug anyway.
For several minutes, we said nothing.
Finally Sophie asked, “Do you think any of it was real?”
I knew what she meant.
Brandon.
Four years.
The life I thought we had.
“I don’t know.”
“That might be worse.”
“It is.”
Anger would have been easier if Brandon had hated me.
But the recording had contained hesitation.
“She thinks I actually fell for Naomi.”
“Did you?”
“Does it matter?”
That pause haunted me.
Maybe Brandon had developed feelings.
Maybe he hadn’t.
Either way, he stayed.
He continued the plan.
Love that allows betrayal to continue isn’t much protection.
At 7:00, Evelyn returned after speaking with federal and local investigators.
Because the files appeared to involve financial fraud, unlawful surveillance, possible coercion, and attempted acquisition of trust property through deception, she recommended turning over a forensic copy immediately.
Dad agreed.
Mom did too.
I surprised everyone.
“Not yet.”
Evelyn studied me.
“Explain.”
“I want Brandon to talk.”
“That could be risky.”
“I won’t meet him alone.”
“Naomi—”
“He still thinks Mom only saw part of what was on the computer.”
Evelyn understood.
“You want him to reveal more before he knows we have the drive.”
“Yes.”
Dad objected immediately.
“No.”
“Dad—”
“No. You canceled the wedding. Someone threw a brick through our window. We are not playing detective.”
He was right.
But I was finished allowing everyone else to decide what I was permitted to know.
“I need to hear him explain why.”
Dad’s expression softened.
“That answer isn’t going to fix this.”
“I know.”
Evelyn eventually proposed a compromise.
I would return Brandon’s call with investigators aware of the contact.
No private meeting.
No threats.
No improvisation.
At 8:14 a.m., I turned on my phone.
Forty-one missed calls from Brandon.
Twenty-three messages.
NAOMI PLEASE ANSWER.
WE NEED TO TALK.
YOUR MOM MISUNDERSTOOD.
MY DAD HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS.
VANESSA IS LYING.
WHERE ARE YOU?
PLEASE.
I LOVE YOU.
That last message made me laugh.
I called.
He answered before the first full ring.
“Naomi.”
He sounded exhausted.
“Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“Thank God.”
“Why?”
“Because someone broke your parents’ window.”
My pulse jumped.
“How do you know?”
Silence.
Police had not released that information.
The brick had been thrown late at night.
We told only Sophie and Evelyn.
“How do you know, Brandon?”
“I heard.”
“From whom?”
“Naomi—”
“From whom?”
“My dad has security contacts.”
Wrong answer.
“Security contacts who know what happens inside my parents’ house?”
“No. That’s not what I meant.”
“Did you send the photograph?”
“Jesus, no.”
“Did Vanessa?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
Another silence.
His voice softened.
“I know yesterday looked terrible.”
“Looked?”
“But there’s an explanation.”
“For my mother’s hair?”
“What Vanessa did was wrong.”
“You called it an accident.”
“I was panicking.”
“Why?”
“Because you were about to cancel everything over something that had nothing to do with us.”
Nothing to do with us.
I stared across the kitchen at the laptop containing eighteen months of surveillance photographs.
“What was on Vanessa’s computer?”
“Business files.”
“My name was there.”
“Because of the wedding.”
“My parents’ names?”
“I don’t know.”
“Eight hundred fifty thousand dollars?”
He stopped breathing for half a second.
There it was.
He knew.
“Where did you hear that number?”
“My mother.”
“What exactly did she see?”
His urgency changed.
Not concerned.
Hungry.
“What did she take?”
I said nothing.
“Naomi.”
“What are you afraid she took?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you asking?”
He lowered his voice.
“I need you to trust me.”
I closed my eyes.
Four years of muscle memory made those words powerful.
For a second, I remembered his hands around mine during my grandmother’s funeral.
His head against my shoulder when his childhood dog died.
Dancing barefoot in our kitchen.
Then I remembered the file created forty-three days before we met.
“I trusted you yesterday.”
“I know.”
“Were you ever going to tell me about the Whitaker Land Trust?”
Nothing.
Sophie looked at me sharply.
Dad stopped walking.
Brandon whispered, “Who told you that?”
And just like that, the lie collapsed.
“You knew.”
“Naomi, listen.”
“You knew before we met.”
“No.”
“We have records.”
That was more than Evelyn wanted me to reveal, but the words escaped.
“What records?”
“Did your father send you to meet me?”
“No.”
“Brandon.”
“No.”
“Then swear.”
He hesitated.
“Swear on the life we were supposed to build together that you didn’t know who I was before that fundraiser.”
Silence.
I waited.
Finally:
“My father told me about the trust.”
My knees weakened.
Even knowing the answer didn’t prepare me for hearing it.
“When?”
“A few weeks before we met.”
“You researched me.”
“He did.”
“You attended the fundraiser because I was there.”
“Yes.”
Sophie covered her mouth.
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“And spilling champagne?”
“I didn’t plan that.”
For some reason, that almost destroyed me.
One accident in a relationship built on calculation.
“How romantic.”
“Naomi, please. I was supposed to meet you. That’s true.”
“Supposed to?”
“My father believed the trust could be developed. Your grandmother refused every offer. After she died, he discovered your mother inherited her interest.”
“So you courted me to get close to my family.”
“At first.”
At first.
Two words designed to rescue four years.
“And later?”
“I fell in love with you.”
I looked through the window at Mom sitting beside Dad.
“Then why didn’t you stop?”
“I tried.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You don’t understand my father.”
“Then explain.”
“He owns everything. My job. My apartment. My investments. He controls the company.”
“You’re thirty-three years old.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“So you sold me because Daddy might cut you off?”
“I didn’t sell you.”
“Ten percent.”
His breathing changed.
“What?”
“Your ten percent.”
Silence.
My voice became calm.
“How much was I worth, Brandon?”
“Naomi—”
“Was your share three million? Four? Did you calculate it while proposing?”
“That money wasn’t payment for you.”
“What was it?”
“My interest in the development.”
“Which you got by marrying me.”
“I never intended to hurt you.”
“That might be the most insulting thing you’ve said.”
He began crying.
I had seen Brandon cry twice.
Once when his grandmother died.
Once during our proposal, or so I believed.
Now his voice cracked.
“I love you.”
“Then help me.”
He went quiet.
“Tell me who photographed me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Lie.”
“I swear.”
“Who broke my parents’ window?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did Vanessa have the files?”
“She handles private project documents for my father.”
“A hairstylist?”
“Her salon is what everyone knows. She also manages investments with her brother.”
“What brother?”
“Caleb Cross.”
Dad immediately wrote the name down.
“What does Caleb do?”
“Private security.”
The room chilled.
“Did Caleb photograph me?”
“I don’t know.”
But this time his denial sounded different.
He knew enough to be afraid.
“Brandon.”
“Naomi, listen carefully.”
His voice dropped.
“Whatever your mother took, don’t bring it back to Vanessa.”
“Why?”
“Because this is bigger than Vanessa.”
“Your father?”
“Bigger.”
Before I could ask another question, I heard a sound.
A door opening on his end.
Brandon immediately stopped talking.
A man’s voice said, “Who are you speaking with?”
Richard Hale.
Brandon whispered, “I have to go.”
Then he hung up.
Thirty seconds later, he texted me.
DO NOT GO HOME.
Evelyn looked at the message.
Then at me.
“He may finally understand what he helped create.”
Dad didn’t look sympathetic.
“Too late.”
Maybe it was.
But Brandon had given us a name.
Caleb Cross.
Within an hour, Evelyn’s investigator found him.
Former sheriff’s deputy.
Private security consultant.
Multiple corporations.
And one company called Sentinel Risk Partners.
Its biggest client over the previous five years?
Hale Strategic Development.
At 10:22, police called.
They had identified a partial fingerprint on the photograph taped to the brick.
It didn’t belong to Brandon.
It didn’t belong to Vanessa.
The match belonged to a man named Joel Mercer.
An employee of Sentinel Risk Partners.
My phone buzzed again.
This message came from an unknown number.
You made a mistake involving law enforcement.
Then another message appeared.
This one contained a picture taken less than a minute earlier.
May you like
Sophie and I were standing on the guesthouse porch.
Someone was watching us again.
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