Chapter 4 - The Bride Who Wasn't Surprised
Adrien locked the office door.
“Give me the manual.”
Camille shook her head.
“No.”
“Someone knows what's inside it.”
“That doesn't mean you get to read my private section.”
“Someone photographed your lease.”
Her resistance weakened.
Adrien continued.
“They knew I visited you. They know the page number. Either someone entered your apartment or someone had access to your documents.”
Camille's face changed.
Ardan House wasn't simply her business.
It was the first thing she'd ever built entirely for herself.
“Where is the binder?”
“My apartment.”
“Not anymore.”
“Adrien—”
“Camille, this isn't about your resignation.”
“No. It's about you deciding that because something frightens you, you get control over it.”
He stopped.
She was right.
He hated that.
“Then you decide.”
“What?”
“You tell me what we do.”
Camille studied him suspiciously.
Adrien waited.
Finally she said, “We check the building cameras.”
“Fine.”
“And you don't send ten people.”
“Five.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Camille.”
“One.”
He sighed.
“One.”
For the first time, she saw him concede something because she'd asked.
It mattered more than it should have.
By afternoon they had an answer.
No one had entered Camille's apartment.
The photograph of the lease had been taken weeks earlier.
There were only three people who had seen it.
Camille.
Celeste.
And the attorney who handled Ardan House.
Adrien called Celeste.
She arrived thirty minutes later.
When Camille showed her the anonymous messages, Celeste didn't look surprised.
Adrien noticed immediately.
“You know who sent these.”
“No.”
“You know something.”
Celeste sat down.
“I received one too.”
She showed them.
A photograph of her engagement ring resting on her dresser.
The message beneath it read:
DON'T HUMILIATE HIM.
Camille's face tightened.
Adrien looked at Celeste.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I thought it was someone trying to frighten me into going through with the wedding.”
“Who?”
Celeste hesitated.
“Your board.”
Adrien laughed once.
“You think my board cares whether I marry you?”
“I think certain members care very much.”
Celeste explained.
The Kovac company was negotiating a massive international expansion. Several conservative investors liked stability. Adrien's marriage to Celeste, whose family controlled a respected logistics firm, had been quietly treated as part of that stability.
No written arrangement existed.
No formal merger depended on it.
But perception mattered.
“Someone thinks canceling the wedding damages the company,” Camille said.
“Yes.”
Adrien's expression cooled.
“Then someone has mistaken my personal life for corporate property.”
Celeste smiled faintly.
“There you are.”
“What?”
“The man I thought I was marrying.”
He looked at her.
She stood.
“I don't mean that romantically.”
“I assumed.”
“You shouldn't. Your assumptions are terrible.”
Camille hid a smile.
Celeste hugged her.
Adrien watched.
There was no rivalry between them.
No betrayal.
Just two women who had apparently spent months understanding his life better than he had.
When Celeste left, Adrien turned to Camille.
“Page 286.”
“No.”
“Whoever sent the message knows what's there.”
“So?”
“So I need to know.”
Camille looked tired.
“It's a letter.”
“The October eighteenth letter?”
“No.”
Adrien frowned.
“How many letters have you written me?”
“Too many.”
“Apparently.”
She sat.
“Page 286 isn't instructions for my successor.”
“What is it?”
“My resignation.”
He said nothing.
“Why hide it?”
“Because I rewrote it fourteen times.”
“Why?”
“Because every version sounded either angry or grateful, and neither was true enough.”
Adrien pulled out the chair opposite her.
“What was true?”
Camille met his eyes.
“That leaving you was the hardest thing I'd ever chosen for myself.”
The sentence hit him harder than Celeste ending their engagement.
He didn't understand why.
Or perhaps he did.
He simply wasn't ready to name it.
“Why?”
Camille looked away.
“Don't.”
“Why was it hard?”
“Because six years is a long time.”
“That's not the reason.”
“It is enough of one.”
“No.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You don't get to interrogate me because your engagement ended.”
“This has nothing to do with Celeste.”
“That is precisely why we shouldn't have this conversation.”
Adrien leaned back.
Camille stood.
“I need to go.”
“Where?”
“Ardan House.”
“Why?”
“Contractor meeting.”
“I'll drive you.”
“No.”
“Camille.”
“No.”
“Why?”
She gave him a look.
“Because my new business cannot begin with my former employer attending my contractor meetings.”
“Former?”
The word slipped out.
Camille froze.
Adrien did too.
She hadn't resigned yet.
But suddenly both of them could see it.
The office without her.
His calendar without her notes.
Mornings without the coffee she somehow always placed in exactly the right spot.
Camille picked up her bag.
“I'll be back tomorrow.”
Adrien watched her leave.
That evening, he stayed alone.
At 8:42, he opened the digital backup of Camille's transition manual.
Pages 1 through 285.
Page 286 was missing.
He searched archived folders.
Nothing.
Then he remembered Camille's sealed envelope.
October 18.
He couldn't read it.
But perhaps Celeste had been right about something else.
The other letter.
The one Adrien himself had supposedly written six years ago.
He searched his private archive.
Old correspondence.
Employment documents.
Then he found a scanned envelope.
CAMILLE ARDEN.
His handwriting.
No memory of writing it.
Adrien opened the scan.
The letter began:
Camille,
If I ever become the kind of man who stops seeing you because you've become too useful to lose...
Adrien stopped.
He stared at the sentence.
Then someone knocked on his locked office door.
Three slow knocks.
Adrien looked at the clock.
9:07 p.m.
Everyone had gone home.
Another knock.
May you like
Then a woman's voice said:
“Mr. Kovac, I have page 286.”
