Chapter 5 - What Valeria Finally Admitted About Breakfast
The next morning Dominic returned to the mansion with Evelyn Price.
No one met in the damaged reception room.
The broken wine display had been cleared away, but the pale mark where it had stood remained visible against the wall.
They used the smaller morning room instead.
Lucian had swelling along his jaw.
Valeria wore makeup over the redness on her cheek.
Margaret sat beside Dominic.
Evelyn placed the loan consent on the table.
“We're not here to debate whether Bellamy Holdings needed financing,” she said. “We are here to determine how Margaret’s trust became collateral.”
Lucian answered first.
“She signed.”
Margaret’s fingers tightened around the arm of her chair.
Evelyn turned to Valeria.
“Did you bring Margaret the signature pages?”
“Yes.”
“Did you describe them as insurance and vendor documents?”
“Some of them were.”
“Was this consent among them?”
Valeria looked at Lucian.
Dominic recognized that glance now.
Not confusion.
Permission.
Lucian said, “Don't.”
Valeria ignored him.
“Yes.”
Margaret inhaled slowly through her nose.
Evelyn asked whether the full loan packet had been present.
“No.”
“Did Margaret know she was pledging North Field?”
Valeria's answer was almost inaudible.
“No.”
Lucian pushed back from the table.
“The company had six weeks of cash left.”
“That wasn't the question,” Dominic said.
“I had eighty-three people depending on payroll.”
“Then you explain the problem to the owner of the property you're trying to pledge.”
“You hadn't been here in five years.”
Dominic almost answered defensively.
Then stopped.
Lucian wasn't wrong about that part.
Valeria began speaking before either man could continue.
“Lucian thought Margaret would refuse anything involving North Field.”
“I would have,” Margaret said.
“That was the problem.”
“No,” Margaret replied. “That was my right.”
Valeria looked down.
There was no useful response to that.
Evelyn asked how the lender received the complete consent.
Valeria explained that Bellamy Holdings’ transaction counsel had assembled the final packet electronically after the signature pages came back.
The attorney had assumed Margaret had reviewed what she signed because Valeria had represented that she had.
That made the transaction more understandable.
It did not make it cleaner.
Dominic asked about the $920,000 transfer.
Valeria’s eyes immediately moved to Lucian again.
For the first time, Lucian looked genuinely alarmed.
“That's unrelated.”
“It's nine hundred twenty thousand dollars from the same loan.”
“It protected the company.”
“From what?”
Lucian stood.
“This meeting is done.”
Margaret remained seated.
“No.”
The word stopped him.
She had been shaken the day before.
Now she sounded like the woman who had managed Bellamy charitable accounts for three decades while her husband handled the operating company.
“You used my land without telling me,” she said. “You shoved me when I brought the proof to my son. You don't get to decide when I'm finished asking questions.”
Lucian stared at her.
Then he said something Dominic had not expected.
May you like
“If you find out what that payment was for, you're going to wish I had left it buried.”
It was the first time Lucian had sounded less afraid of being caught than of what the truth itself might do.
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