Chapter 4 - BIANCA'S REAL JOB
I had met Bianca two years earlier.
She had arrived at the company as Director of Global Brand Partnerships.
Thirty-two.
Fluent in four languages.
Educated in Milan and London.
Beautiful in the polished, deliberate way luxury brands loved.
I liked her.
That was the part that embarrassed me most.
I had invited her to dinner.
Sent flowers when her mother was hospitalized.
Recommended her for promotion.
While I helped build her career, she had apparently been helping herself to my husband.
But Margaret believed the affair was secondary.
“Bianca worked for Carrow Equity before Mercer International,” she said.
I knew the name.
Everyone in hospitality did.
Carrow Equity bought distressed luxury properties.
Usually after pushing the owners toward distress in the first place.
“They've approached us before,” I said.
“Three times,” my father replied.
“And we declined.”
Margaret placed another photograph beside the first.
Bianca at a restaurant in Zurich.
Across from her sat Nathan Carrow.
Founder of Carrow Equity.
“What is she doing with him?”
“We believe she was acting as an intermediary.”
“For Julian?”
Margaret did not answer immediately.
That frightened me.
“Elena, fourteen months ago, Julian authorized a series of loans through Mercer International subsidiaries.”
“I know about the expansion financing.”
“These weren't expansion loans.”
She pushed a document toward me.
The amount made my stomach tighten.
Three hundred eighty million dollars.
Secured partly against management revenue from six resorts.
“Can he do that?”
“He can pledge operating income.”
“But not the land.”
“Correct.”
“Then what was the point?”
My father answered.
“Pressure.”
I stared at him.
He continued.
“If the operating company defaults, lenders seize its assets and contracts.”
“But the real estate stays with us.”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“Someone offers the landowners a choice.”
Margaret leaned forward.
“Sell the properties at a discount or watch empty buildings lose value.”
I finally understood.
Carrow didn't need to own our land directly.
They only needed to destroy the company operating on top of it.
Then they could negotiate from strength.
“Julian wouldn't do that.”
My father said nothing.
“He loves the company.”
“He loves power,” Margaret replied.
“That isn't the same thing.”
I wanted to argue.
Nine years of memories fought back.
Julian sleeping on office floors during our first renovation.
Julian carrying tile samples through airports.
Julian crying when the first Aurelia resort opened fully booked.
That man had been real.
I knew he had.
But somewhere between the first property and the twentieth, ambition changed him.
Or perhaps success simply removed the need to hide who he had always been.
My phone vibrated.
A message from Julian.
ANSWER ME.
Then another.
THIS ISN'T A GAME.
A third appeared.
WE NEED TO TALK BEFORE SIX.
I showed my father.
He shrugged.
“He's learning.”
Margaret checked her watch.
“Three hours until the meeting.”
I stood.
“I want to be there.”
My father nodded.
“You should be.”
“I don't want you speaking for me.”
His eyes softened.
“I never intended to.”
That mattered.
This was my marriage.
My company.
My humiliation.
My decision.
At 4:40 a.m., I changed into a charcoal suit that still hung in my childhood closet.
My mother had bought it for me years earlier before my first board presentation.
She died six months later.
Her initials were still stitched into the inside pocket.
A.V.
Adriana Vale.
I touched them once.
Then walked downstairs.
Margaret was waiting by the door.
My father stood beside her.
As we prepared to leave, Victor, the family's chief counsel, entered from the study carrying his laptop.
His expression made everyone stop.
“What happened?” my father asked.
Victor looked at me.
“We traced one of the transfers.”
“To Carrow?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
He turned the laptop around.
A shell company appeared on the screen.
MORROW HOUSE VENTURES.
I had never heard of it.
Victor opened the ownership page.
The listed beneficiary was hidden.
But the mailing address was not.
I knew it instantly.
It belonged to the lake house Julian and I had purchased three years earlier.
The property where he said he went to think.
May you like
The property I hadn't visited in eight months.
And according to Victor, more than sixty million dollars had been transferred to a company registered there.
