Chapter 7
Richard called me himself the next afternoon.
I answered.
“Elena.”
“Richard.”
“I think it’s time we spoke.”
“Yes.”
He seemed surprised.
“I can come to you.”
“No. We’ll meet at Luca’s office.”
A pause.
“Is that necessary?”
“Yes.”
Another pause.
“All right.”
Richard arrived alone.
He looked older than he had at my birthday party.
Not dramatically.
Just enough that I noticed.
Without the estate, assistants, drivers, and tailored social machinery around him, he was simply a sixty-seven-year-old man sitting at a conference table across from the daughter of someone who had once been his closest friend.
Luca sat beside me.
Richard placed his hands on the table.
“I assume you found Tom’s letter.”
I stared at him.
“You knew it existed?”
“I knew he intended to write something.”
“Did you know where it was?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the partnership?”
He looked down.
“Because your father asked me not to interfere in your marriage.”
“That does not answer the question.”
He smiled faintly.
“You learned that from Luca?”
“I learned it from spending seven years accepting answers to questions I didn’t ask.”
His smile disappeared.
“Fair enough.”
He took a breath.
“I did not tell you because I was ashamed.”
That was not the answer I expected.
“Of what?”
“Of Riverside. Of how I treated Tom.”
Richard looked toward the windows.
“He was the best friend I had ever had. And when the business began failing, I convinced myself that saving the company justified decisions I would have condemned in anyone else.”
“Dad wrote that.”
“I imagine he used kinder language.”
“He didn’t.”
A short, surprised laugh escaped him.
“That sounds like Tom.”
For a second, I could see them young.
Two ambitious men at a riverfront construction site.
Before money made every decision heavier.
“Did you forge my signature?”
“No.”
“Did you authorize it?”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Did you know someone was trying to use my signatures to release the Moretti rights?”
He was quiet.
Luca shifted beside me.
Finally Richard said, “I authorized our legal team to explore whether existing marital consents were sufficient.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
He closed his eyes.
“No. I did not authorize forged signatures.”
“But you wanted a result badly enough that someone might have believed you didn’t care how they got it.”
His face changed.
That sentence reached him.
“I suppose that is possible.”
It was not absolution.
But it was the first accountable answer I had heard from him.
“Did Adrian know?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“He knew the rights existed. He knew marrying you complicated matters.”
My stomach turned.
“Complicated?”
“He was angry when I raised it.”
I stared at him.
“What did he say?”
Richard hesitated.
Then:
“He told me that if I ever implied he married you for business reasons again, he would leave the company.”
I was unprepared for that.
Luca glanced at me.
I said nothing.
Richard continued.
“Adrian loved you. Whatever else you now believe about him, that part was true.”
“Then why did he sign anything?”
“Because years later I convinced him the matter was administrative. Old paperwork. A technical cleanup.”
“And he believed you?”
“He wanted to.”
There it was again.
Trust.
Not innocence.
Not guilt.
Trust used as a shortcut.
Richard looked older suddenly.
“I taught my son that uncomfortable truths could be managed if they were managed quietly.”
I thought of Margaret.
Of Sophie leaving.
Of Adrian’s affair.
Of my father’s letter hidden in a drawer.
“How did that work out?”
He accepted the question without defensiveness.
“Badly.”
We sat in silence.
Then Richard pushed a folder toward me.
Luca stopped my hand.
“I’ll review it first.”
Richard nodded.
“It contains an independent accounting I commissioned after Gabriel contacted our counsel.”
“You commissioned it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know what happened.”
“You expect me to trust that?”
“No.”
The answer surprised me.
“I expect you to verify it.”
For the first time, I understood that Richard Cole might actually be learning something.
Not enough.
Not quickly.
May you like
But something.
—
