Chapter 2 - THE EIGHTEEN-MILLION-DOLLAR SECRET
Graham drove Natalie away from Cliffhaven Estate in a black sedan, leaving the reception hall full of stunned guests and untouched champagne.
Neither spoke for the first ten minutes.
Natalie watched the coastline disappear behind them.
Finally, she turned toward him.
“Did you transfer eighteen million dollars?”
“No.”
“Is your signature on the documents?”
“I don't know.”
She stared at him.
“You don't know?”
“Prescott Hospitality has more than forty subsidiaries. I sign hundreds of documents every month. Some are legitimate transactions. Some are refinancing agreements. Some are approvals that require my signature because I'm chairman.”
“That sounds convenient.”
Graham accepted the accusation without becoming defensive.
“It does.”
Natalie looked down at her wedding ring.
The gold band had belonged to Tessa's grandmother. It was too small for her finger, and Graham had placed it there so gently that Natalie had almost forgotten why she was wearing it.
Almost.
“Are we really doing this?” she asked.
“Doing what?”
“Whatever this is between us.”
Graham kept his eyes on the road.
“I don't know.”
The answer surprised her.
“You don't know?”
“I know I care about you. I know I have for a long time. I also know you walked away from a wedding less than an hour ago because your fiancé betrayed you. I won't turn that pain into an obligation.”
Natalie studied him.
“What happens tomorrow?”
“We decide whether you want me in your life when you no longer need someone standing beside you.”
“And if I do?”
“Then we start slowly.”
She looked out the window again.
For the first time all afternoon, she felt the pressure in her chest ease.
Graham brought her to his private residence overlooking Monterey Bay. It was smaller than the Prescott family mansion but warmer, filled with books, framed photographs, and furniture that looked used rather than displayed.
He offered her a guest room.
She accepted.
Then he called the company's general counsel, Evelyn Shaw, and requested a confidential review of the alleged transfer.
By eight that evening, Evelyn had arrived with a laptop and a thick folder of financial records.
She was in her late fifties, with silver hair, sharp eyes, and the expression of someone who had spent decades cleaning up other people's mistakes.
“The message refers to a transfer from a development account in March,” she explained. “The funds were meant for the Seabrook redevelopment project.”
Natalie knew the project.
She had helped prepare its financial projections the previous year. Seabrook was supposed to transform a neglected waterfront district into a mixed-use community with affordable housing, shops, and a small hotel.
“Was the money transferred?” Natalie asked.
Evelyn nodded.
“Eighteen million dollars moved into an outside investment vehicle. The authorization appears to carry Graham's signature.”
Graham leaned forward.
“Show me.”
Evelyn placed the document on the table.
He studied it.
The signature looked convincing.
But Natalie noticed something immediately.
“The date is wrong.”
Evelyn turned toward her.
“What?”
“The approval is dated March fourteenth. Graham was in Chicago that week. I was working on the acquisition with him. We signed the final financing documents on March fifteenth.”
“That doesn't establish anything,” Graham said.
“No, but this does.”
Natalie pointed to the authorization code.
“This number belongs to the old Seabrook operating account. It was retired in January.”
Evelyn's expression sharpened.
“Are you certain?”
“I prepared the closure report myself.”
Graham looked at the document again.
“So someone used an obsolete account number and a forged signature.”
“Possibly,” Evelyn said. “Or someone manipulated the records to make the transfer look authorized.”
“Who had access?”
Evelyn opened a second file.
“Finance, executive administration, and anyone with senior-level authorization.”
Natalie recognized several names.
One belonged to Miles.
Another belonged to his closest business adviser, Richard Vale.
The third belonged to Diane Prescott.
The room went quiet.
“Why would my mother have access?” Graham asked.
“She chairs the family's private investment committee,” Evelyn replied.
Graham stood.
“Freeze the remaining development accounts. Preserve every record. No one deletes anything, and no one contacts the people listed here until we know what we're dealing with.”
Evelyn nodded.
As she packed her documents, Natalie noticed a photograph tucked into the folder.
It showed Miles standing beside Richard Vale outside a private banking office.
The photograph was dated three weeks earlier.
“Why is this included?” she asked.
Evelyn hesitated.
“An anonymous source sent it to our compliance department. The source claimed Miles had been moving money through companies that weren't listed in the official financial statements.”
Natalie felt the familiar ache of betrayal return.
Miles had looked her in the eyes during their engagement dinner and promised that Seabrook would be the beginning of their life together.
He had told her he wanted their future children to grow up near the ocean.
Now she wondered whether the promises had been nothing more than a performance.
“Do you think he stole the money?” she asked.
Graham shook his head.
“I think we need evidence before we decide.”
“Even now, you're protecting him.”
“No. I'm protecting the truth. If he did this, I want him held accountable. If someone forged his signature, I want to know who did it.”
Natalie sat back.
She had spent four years defending Miles because she believed his mistakes were temporary and his intentions were good.
Graham wasn't asking her to defend anyone.
He was asking her to wait until she knew.
It was a difference she was only beginning to understand.
Later that night, she found him standing on the balcony.
The ocean was black beneath the moonlight.
“Thank you,” she said.
He turned.
“For what?”
“For not telling me what I want to hear.”
Graham leaned against the railing.
“I spent years watching my father tell people whatever they needed to hear. It made him popular. It also made him dangerous.”
“Was Miles like him?”
“Sometimes.”
“And you?”
“I learned to be silent instead.”
Natalie moved beside him.
“Does that make you a better man?”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“It just means I have different mistakes to make.”
She laughed softly.
For a moment, the space between them felt natural.
Then Graham's phone rang.
It was Evelyn.
She had discovered that the outside investment vehicle receiving the eighteen million dollars had been registered under a company that no longer existed.
Its former director was listed as deceased.
Its mailing address belonged to an abandoned office building in Nevada.
And its original incorporation documents carried the signature of a woman named Margaret Brooks.
Natalie's mother.
The woman who had died when Natalie was seventeen.
Graham stared at the screen.
Natalie felt the blood drain from her face.
“That can't be right.”
Evelyn's voice was quiet.
“I'm afraid the records are authentic.”
Natalie shook her head.
“My mother was a schoolteacher. She never worked for Prescott Hospitality.”
Graham reached for her hand.
“Then someone used her identity.”
“Or someone knew her.”
Natalie thought of the years her mother had spent working late, the unexplained telephone calls, and the old metal filing cabinet she had refused to let anyone open.
She had assumed those memories were ordinary pieces of a difficult childhood.
Now they seemed like fragments of a story she had never been told.
She looked at Graham.
“What if this has nothing to do with Miles?”
He didn't answer.
May you like
Because both of them were thinking the same thing.
What if the eighteen million dollars was only the beginning?
