Chapter 7 - THE NECKLACE MEANT FOR HIS WIFE
Adrian looked at the silver pendant.
“Why didn't Mia receive it?”
Raymond closed his eyes.
“Celeste said the necklace had disappeared.”
“But she had it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Raymond shook his head.
“That's something you'll have to ask her.”
Adrian studied the pendant.
He remembered his mother's hands fastening that necklace every morning.
She had been a gentle woman living inside a ruthless family.
His father had loved her fiercely.
Yet he had also controlled her life in ways Adrian had barely understood as a boy.
He wondered how much of that behavior he'd repeated.
“Did Mother really leave instructions?” he asked.
Raymond nodded.
“She said any woman who married into this family would need reminding that she belonged to herself.”
Adrian looked down.
His mother had understood something he'd spent six years refusing to see.
Providing everything wasn't the same as giving someone freedom.
Mia was at Nora's kitchen table when she received a message from Marcus.
Not from Adrian.
Marcus simply wrote that Adrian knew she was safe and would respect her request for space.
Mia read the sentence twice.
She had expected anger.
Demands.
Security teams searching every station in Chicago.
Instead, Adrian had apparently stepped back.
For some reason, that hurt too.
Nora noticed her expression.
“What happened?”
“He isn't coming.”
“Isn't that what you wanted?”
Mia looked toward the window.
“Yes.”
But she was beginning to understand that wanting something and grieving it could happen at the same time.
Her phone rested beside the silver DADDY keychain.
She picked it up.
Turned it over.
Then put it down again.
At the Vale estate, Adrian found Celeste in the library.
She was sitting beside the fireplace with a glass of water.
He placed the necklace on the table.
Her face went pale.
“Where did you get that?”
“Raymond.”
Celeste looked away.
Adrian sat opposite her.
“My mother wanted you to give it to my wife.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you?”
Celeste's hands tightened.
“Because I was supposed to be your wife.”
The confession came without drama.
Without raised voices.
Almost like a fact she had carried for years.
Adrian stared at her.
“What?”
“Your mother treated me like a daughter. Raymond expected us to marry. Your father encouraged it before he died.”
“We were friends.”
“I know.”
“You knew.”
Celeste laughed bitterly.
“I told myself friendship was enough. Then you met Mia.”
Adrian looked toward the necklace.
“After the accident?”
“After you spent every waking hour at her hospital bed.”
She swallowed.
“I watched you become devoted to her. I watched you marry her. I watched everyone congratulate you for being noble.”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“And you resented her.”
“I resented being invisible.”
For the first time, her voice cracked.
“I spent six years helping you manage doctors, schedules, transportation, everything. Mia never wanted me around, but I kept showing up.”
“You kept showing up because you wanted her place.”
Celeste said nothing.
Adrian leaned forward.
“Did you arrange the attack?”
Her eyes widened.
“No.”
“Did you authorize those visitor badges?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Raymond asked me to.”
“Did you know what they were for?”
“I thought they were for a financial audit.”
Adrian watched her carefully.
“And the fourth badge?”
Celeste closed her eyes.
“I saw it after the forms were approved.”
“Who requested it?”
“A woman from the foundation. She said she was reviewing old scholarship files.”
“Name?”
“Margaret Sloane.”
Adrian recognized it.
Margaret had once managed Eleanor's charitable foundation.
She had retired shortly after the attack.
“Where is she now?”
Celeste shook her head.
“I haven't seen her in years.”
Adrian stood.
“Why didn't you tell me any of this?”
“Because I was afraid you'd discover I had helped someone who nearly killed you.”
He stared at her.
“And instead you spent six years trying to convince me my marriage wasn't love.”
Celeste began crying quietly.
“I thought if Mia eventually left, you'd finally see me.”
Adrian looked at the necklace.
“You were wrong.”
Later that evening, Celeste removed an old envelope from her handbag.
She had kept it hidden beneath the lining for six years.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Eleanor Vale's handwriting.
Celeste read the final paragraph again.
When Adrian finds the woman who challenges him to become a better man, give her my necklace. Please don't mistake being needed for being loved.
Celeste sat motionless.
Then she turned the page.
A smaller note was attached.
Written years after Eleanor's death.
It was from Margaret Sloane.
The necklace is not only a keepsake. The inscription identifies the original foundation archive.
Celeste looked toward the fireplace.
For six years, she had believed the necklace represented the marriage she should have had.
Now she realized it had been something else.
A key to a past nobody had fully understood.
May you like
And on the back of Margaret's note was one final warning.
If the archive is opened, Raymond Vale will lose everything.
