Chapter 4 - THE SOCIALITE'S HIDDEN AGREEMENT|
No one moved.
Clarissa held the pistol with both hands, but her fingers trembled so badly that the barrel wavered between Theodore and Nadia.
“You have no idea what you're looking at,” she said. “Put the papers down.”
Theodore stepped in front of Nadia.
“Clarissa. Lower the weapon.”
“Don't use that voice with me.”
“I'm giving you a chance to walk away.”
She laughed bitterly.
“A chance? You gave me a ring. You gave me your name. You let me build a life in this house, and now you're standing there pretending I'm a stranger because your mother's old seamstress left a collection of dusty papers?”
“You brought a gun into my house.”
“Because you wouldn't listen!”
Theodore's security chief, Marcus Reed, stood beyond the doorway. He had quietly signaled the guards to hold their positions. One sudden movement could turn the room into a tragedy.
Nadia kept her eyes on Clarissa.
“Why did you cut my hair?”
Clarissa stared at her.
“What?”
“You could have fired me. You could have humiliated me in front of the staff. But you chose my hair. Why?”
For a moment, Clarissa looked almost offended by the question.
Then something ugly emerged in her expression.
“Because you have her eyes.”
Nadia felt a chill.
“Whose eyes?”
“Margaret's.”
Clarissa's voice broke on the name.
“She used to look at me exactly like that. As if I were something she could see through.”
Eleanor stepped forward.
“You were jealous of her.”
“I was protecting myself!”
“From a dead seamstress?”
“From the truth!”
Clarissa's composure collapsed. She lowered the pistol slightly, breathing hard.
She confessed that Richard Hawthorne had paid her father to manage several private accounts. After Richard died, she discovered that the accounts contained money stolen from tenants, employees, and business partners. The documents could destroy the Hawthorne empire.
Clarissa had used some of the money to finance her fashion company. In return, she was supposed to keep the old records hidden.
But she had not known about the sealed workshop until Eleanor began asking questions.
“I spent years trying to find the original ledger,” she said. “I searched this entire house. I questioned employees. I even paid someone to look into Margaret's family.”
Nadia's hands tightened.
“You investigated me?”
“I wanted to know whether you had anything.”
“My mother's ashes were all I had.”
Clarissa looked away.
“Your mother was never supposed to die.”
The sentence fell into the room like a stone.
Theodore's expression hardened.
“Explain.”
Clarissa shook her head.
“I wasn't there when the fire started. I swear to you, I wasn't. But Richard said the documents had to disappear. He said Margaret was going to ruin everyone.”
“Who started the fire?” Nadia demanded.
“I don't know.”
“Who locked the doors?”
Clarissa said nothing.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Richard did.”
Clarissa looked at her with sudden fury.
“And you still married into this family. You still took the money. You still wore the diamonds.”
“I was trapped.”
“So was I!”
Theodore moved one step closer.
“Put the gun down, Clarissa.”
For a long moment, she seemed to consider firing. Then a faint siren sounded outside the estate.
Her eyes widened.
“You called the police?”
“No,” Theodore replied. “Marcus did.”
Clarissa looked toward the doorway. The moment her attention shifted, Marcus moved.
He seized her wrist, twisted the weapon away, and forced her hands behind her back. The pistol struck the floor.
Clarissa screamed as the guards restrained her.
“You think you've won?” she shouted at Theodore. “You think you can bury me and keep the empire?”
He watched without speaking.
As she was escorted away, she turned toward Nadia.
“Ask your mother why she kept you away from this house. Ask her what she did to the baby.”
Nadia went completely still.
“What baby?”
Clarissa smiled through her tears.
“The one your family paid to make disappear.”
The guards dragged her into the corridor.
When the door closed, Nadia looked down at the letter in her hand.
The final line had been written in faded ink, almost invisible beneath a stain.
The child is alive. And the Hawthornes have been protecting the wrong person.
Theodore read it over her shoulder.
Then he saw the date.
May you like
Twenty-three years earlier.
The same year he had been born.
