Chapter 7 - GRETA’S FRIENDS WERE NOT THE PEOPLE I NEEDED TO FEAR
Greta finally asked to meet.
No lawyers in the room initially.
Adrian hated that.
I allowed ten minutes with counsel outside.
We met in a private conference room at a hotel that had no Wallace ownership.
Greta wore black.
No makeup.
It was calculated.
Probably.
I noticed anyway.
“You destroyed me,” she said.
“No.”
“You canceled the trust.”
“Yes.”
“You walked out in front of everybody.”
“After you pushed my mother into a fountain.”
“She wasn’t hurt.”
That was the end of any softness I had left.
“She could have been.”
Greta looked away.
“I lost my temper.”
“Why?”
“She was embarrassing me.”
“How?”
“She refused the stylist. Refused the dress. Kept wandering into photographs.”
“She was a guest.”
“At our engagement party.”
“Yes.”
Greta stared at me as though I were deliberately misunderstanding something obvious.
“Everything was being photographed.”
“So?”
“Our announcement was going to be everywhere.”
There.
Image first.
Human second.
Then I asked about the financing.
Her expression changed.
“You’re mixing business with us.”
“No. Your family did.”
“My father was negotiating with you before we got engaged.”
“Correct.”
“You knew Wallace needed capital.”
“I did not know you were presenting my marriage as supplemental financial support.”
“That’s wording.”
“Banks care about wording.”
She exhaled.
“Nothing said you were legally obligated.”
“Then why did your father need my signature at 10:15 that night?”
Silence.
“Greta.”
“It would have reassured the bank.”
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
That admission hurt more than expected.
“How long?”
“Several weeks.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Adrian would have turned it into a fifty-page negotiation.”
“He’s my lawyer. That’s his job.”
“You were going to sign a nonbinding letter.”
“You don’t get to decide what I’m going to sign.”
Her face hardened.
“There. That.”
“What?”
“You make everything sound like somebody is trying to steal from you.”
I stared.
“Your family hid a lender use from me.”
“Because you come from a world where every dollar is survival.”
There it was.
Not as blatant as the fountain.
Same contempt.
She continued:
“My family thinks in generations.”
“So did my mother. She just didn’t have money.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know exactly what you meant.”
Greta stood.
“Do you know what happens if Wallace loses the refinancing?”
“Assets get sold.”
“People lose jobs.”
“Maybe.”
“My father loses the company his grandfather built.”
“Possibly.”
“And you’re walking away because my mother got pushed into water?”
“Your mother?”
She froze.
“My mother.”
She closed her eyes.
“Fine.”
That mistake said more than she intended.
The Wallaces occupied so much space in her head that family defaulted to hers.
Then she whispered:
“If you leave now, everyone will think you used me.”
I almost laughed.
“Used you for what?”
“Access.”
“To what?”
Her face flushed.
“This world.”
There it was.
She believed she had elevated me.
Not financially.
Socially.
Greta genuinely thought marrying her gave me something billions could not purchase:
legitimacy.
That explained why she treated Helen like contamination.
My mother reminded everyone that Tristan Hale had not been born inside the room.
I left after eleven minutes.
Outside, Adrian asked:
“How bad?”
“Worse.”
“Financially?”
“No.”
That distinction finally felt clear.
May you like
The audit could tell me whether Wallace Holdings had problems.
Greta had already told me why the marriage did.
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