Chapter 5 - VICTORIA HALE
Everyone expected Victoria to disappear.
She didn’t.
Three days after the paternity results, she came to my bakery alone.
I almost asked her to leave.
Then she placed a file on the counter.
“My father kept copies.”
I stopped.
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
Charles Hale had maintained private legal archives at his house.
Victoria found them after Richard confronted her.
She could have destroyed them.
Instead she brought them to me.
“Why?”
Her face looked exhausted.
“Because my father participated in what happened to you.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
She swallowed.
“But I knew part of the story.”
That got my attention.
“What part?”
“When Ethan and I started dating two years ago, he told me about you.”
Of course.
“He said you took seventy-five thousand dollars and disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“I believed him.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
Victoria winced.
Then:
“Last year, I found an old billing entry in Dad’s files with your name.”
“What entry?”
Client matter: E. Blackwood / Claire Dawson separation.
Victoria asked her father about it.
Charles became defensive.
Told her Eleanor handled everything.
Told her not to dig.
“And you stopped?”
“Yes.”
At least she admitted it.
“Why?”
“Because I was engaged to Ethan.”
There it was.
“I didn’t want the past becoming present.”
I understood more than I wanted to.
She opened the file.
Copies of the fake agreement.
Payments.
The investigator’s invoices.
Instructions for intercepting mail.
One line chilled me.
Monitor pregnancy claim if asserted.
Victoria stared at it.
“I didn’t know about Noah.”
“I believe you.”
Her eyes filled.
“Ethan ended our engagement yesterday.”
I had expected that.
“I’m sorry.”
She almost laughed.
“Are you?”
“No.”
That surprised a real laugh out of her.
Then she became serious.
“He thinks he cannot stay engaged to me while my father’s role is being investigated.”
“That seems reasonable.”
“It is.”
Silence.
Then:
“I was awful to you at the restaurant.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were using Richard.”
“Yes.”
“I thought Noah was…”
She stopped.
“A prop?”
Her face reddened.
“Yes.”
I nodded.
“That’s what Ethan thought too.”
“I’m sorry.”
I believed she was.
That did not make us friends.
Before leaving, Victoria said:
“You should know something.”
“What?”
“Ethan didn’t end our engagement because he expects you back.”
I stared.
“He said he isn’t going to turn you into another thing he’s entitled to because he was wronged.”
That sounded almost mature.
Almost.
Victoria left.
I watched her through the bakery window.
Seven years earlier, I might have enjoyed seeing the elegant woman lose Ethan.
Now it felt complicated.
She was another person who had inherited an edited version of our history.
Not innocent of her cruelty.
Not responsible for Eleanor’s scheme.
Both could be true.
May you like
That became the theme of everything.
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