Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO CUT THE DRESS
The next morning, Avery woke to the sound of rain against the windows.
She was in her own bedroom at the Rook estate.
Her hands had been cleaned and dressed at urgent care.
A clinician had given her instructions for wound care and rest.
Gabriel sat in the armchair beside her bed.
Still wearing yesterday's trousers.
His jacket lay folded across his knees.
Avery blinked.
“Did you sleep here?”
He looked up.
“No.”
She glanced at the clock.
“It's seven.”
“I know.”
“You've been sitting there all night?”
He hesitated.
“Most of it.”
Avery stared.
“Why?”
Gabriel looked at her bandaged hands.
“Because I didn't know how else to apologize.”
She sat up slowly.
“Gabriel, you didn't send me to the service hall.”
“No.”
“Your mother did.”
“And I left you alone with people who believed they could treat you that way.”
Avery looked down.
He continued.
“I married you to keep another family from controlling your life.”
His voice hardened.
“Then I brought you into a house where my own family tried to do the same.”
Avery said nothing.
Gabriel leaned forward.
“I'm sorry.”
It was the first apology he'd offered without adding an explanation.
Later that morning, Evelyn arrived carrying a box.
Inside were pieces of dark blue silk.
A torn length of antique lace.
And a pearl-encrusted scrap from the original bodice.
“I kept everything,” she said.
Avery frowned.
“Why?”
“I thought the restoration studio might need it.”
She placed the box on the bed.
“There's something else.”
Gabriel looked up.
Evelyn withdrew a photograph.
It showed the damaged gown lying across the dressing room floor.
Near the hem was a distinctive gold cufflink.
Gabriel recognized it immediately.
A black onyx square set in gold.
His father had commissioned six identical pairs for the family's senior executives.
One pair belonged to him.
One to his late father.
One to his uncle.
And three to men who managed the Rook family's business interests.
Avery looked at the photograph.
“Could someone have dropped it accidentally?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Possibly. But I know who wore that design.”
Evelyn swallowed.
“Who?”
Gabriel looked at the image again.
Then whispered:
“Marcus Vale.”
Marcus Vale was the Rook family's longtime legal adviser.
He was fifty-eight, elegant, and unfailingly polite.
He had managed estate documents, property transfers, and private agreements for more than twenty years.
He was also the man who'd drafted Gabriel and Avery's marriage contract.
Avery remembered him smiling as she signed.
This arrangement protects everyone, he'd said.
Now she wondered whether he'd meant everyone except her.
Gabriel called Marcus.
No answer.
He tried again.
Voicemail.
Then he contacted the estate's security manager.
“Preserve all recordings from the dressing-room corridor.”
The manager hesitated.
“Sir, those recordings were deleted.”
Gabriel went still.
“Deleted by whom?”
A pause.
“Mr. Vale authorized the removal.”
May you like
Gabriel closed his eyes.
And the first piece of a much larger betrayal fell into place.
