Chapter 4 - THE $480 MILLION SIGNATURE SHE NEVER GAVE
My own phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
An image.
A contract.
My maiden name appeared on the signature line.
Isabella Claire Laurent.
Beside it was a figure.
$480,000,000.
I enlarged the document.
My stomach dropped.
“What is this?”
Adrian saw the screen.
For the first time all night, fear entered his face.
“Give me your phone.”
“No.”
“Isabella.”
He moved toward me.
I stood.
“Why is my name on a four-hundred-eighty-million-dollar transfer?”
“You don’t understand what you’re reading.”
I laughed once.
“Explain it to your stupid wife.”
Three knocks hit the door.
Nicholas entered without waiting.
“The Devereaux group is leaving. Charles wants confirmation tonight.”
Then he saw my phone.
His face emptied.
“She knows?”
Two words.
Two devastating words.
I looked at Nicholas.
He had been best man at our wedding.
He brought flowers when I miscarried.
He sat with me during Adrian’s surgery.
“You knew too.”
Nicholas looked down.
Adrian’s voice hardened.
“Get out.”
“Stay,” I said.
Adrian turned on me.
“It’s my office.”
“And apparently my signature.”
Nicholas put a leather folder on the desk.
“The agreement isn’t complete.”
“Nick.”
“I’m done lying to her.”
Adrian’s fist hit the desk.
Nicholas didn’t move.
“The Devereaux financing requires transfer rights connected to a protected credit vehicle. Spousal authorization was required because some underlying guarantees were linked to Isabella’s maiden identity.”
I looked between them.
“Someone submitted authorization yesterday,” Nicholas finished quietly.
Yesterday.
Yesterday morning Adrian had kissed my forehead.
He had asked whether white roses or blue hydrangeas looked better in the ballroom.
While I chose flowers, someone forged my name.
I studied the signature.
It was excellent.
Almost.
The final stroke of Laurent curved upward.
Mine curved down.
My mother had taught me that signature when I was thirteen.
Never sign what you haven’t read, Bella.
Never let a powerful man make you ashamed of understanding money.
The memory was so vivid I could smell my mother’s perfume.
I called my attorney.
Rebecca Sloan answered immediately.
“Isabella?”
“Someone forged my signature on an international asset transfer.”
Adrian reached for my phone.
Nicholas stepped between us.
“Don’t.”
Adrian stared at him.
Nicholas had worked for the Moretti family for eighteen years.
Yet he did not move.
Rebecca’s voice sharpened through the speaker.
“Preserve the original. Don’t sign anything else. Forward everything to me.”
Another message arrived.
A security photograph.
Camille entering my private study.
Beside her was Adrian’s notary carrying a silver briefcase.
Six words appeared below the picture.
Ask what happened to your mother.
The room seemed to tilt.
My mother had died in Paris when I was twenty-four.
At least that was the simple version.
She had been a brilliant investment strategist, daughter of Lucian Laurent, founder of one of Europe’s largest private financial groups. She hated publicity. After she died, I walked away from most of it.
I wanted ordinary.
I wanted someone to love Isabella instead of the Laurent name.
Then I met Adrian in a bookstore in Chicago.
May you like
He had no idea who I was.
Or so I had believed.
