The Fiancée Who Needed a Villain
Chapter 08 - The Fiancée Who Needed a Villain
Celeste didn't disappear quietly. She organized a luncheon at a rival hotel and told influential donors that she had been persecuted by a disgruntled waitress with an elaborate story. Several guests repeated the accusation online. A few added lies of their own.
I wanted to answer every post. Nina advised me not to. My lawyer told me to save anything threatening and let the investigations follow their own course. So I worked, cooked dinner, and took Sophie to class while strangers argued over people they'd never met.
Then Celeste offered me money.
The proposal came through a private intermediary: a large payment if I signed a statement saying I'd misunderstood her behavior at the gala and had exaggerated my knowledge of Lydia's concerns. I passed the letter to counsel without responding.
Adrian heard about it and went quiet. “She thinks everything has a price.”
I looked at him. “At the gala, she thought my daughter would do anything for applause. Now she thinks I'll do anything for cash.”
“Would the money help?” he asked.
I laughed without humor. “It would change our lives. That's what makes the offer cruel.”
He nodded. Neither of us pretended poverty made the temptation simple.
Meanwhile, Sophie practiced a little duet with Jasmine Ortiz, one of the children whose scholarship had vanished. Jasmine was thirteen and patient enough to help Sophie count the difficult measures. At rehearsal they sometimes missed the beat and dissolved into laughter.
One afternoon Jasmine's mother approached me. “My daughter was about to quit,” she said. “She thought the foundation had judged her not worth the money.”
I watched Jasmine correct Sophie's posture without being unkind.
“They lied to her,” I said.
Jasmine's mother nodded. “But now she knows that.”
I understood then that restoring the grants was about more than bookkeeping. Every missing payment had become a personal story: a teenager who believed she wasn't good enough, a teacher who stopped asking for help, a family who gave up on an audition.
That evening Adrian canceled his engagement to Celeste through a formal statement. He made clear that the relationship had ended, while avoiding claims the authorities had not established.
Celeste responded with fury. Her final message to him read, “You have no idea what Lydia was hiding from you.”
Adrian called me the same night. His voice was controlled, but I heard his fear. “Mara, did Lydia ever tell you she was hiding something from me?”
May you like
I thought about the last pages of the notebook, glued together so neatly I'd always assumed the paper had warped from spilled tea.
“Maybe,” I said. “I need to look again.”
