Chapter 5 - WHO PUT ISOLDE AT TABLE NINE
“I did not arrange your marriage.”
Genevieve said it before Rowan finished the question.
They were back downstairs.
Isolde remained beside him.
The cassette was now sealed in a clear bag Malcolm provided.
No one had played it.
Yet.
Rowan placed Marianne's note on the table.
“Did you arrange the Whitmore dinner?”
“Yes.”
“Did you put Isolde there?”
Genevieve looked at her.
“No.”
Isolde spoke.
“My invitation came through the museum.”
Genevieve nodded.
“You were assistant registrar for the Whitmore collection.”
“Yes.”
“That was your job.”
Rowan asked:
“Table Nine.”
Genevieve's face shifted.
There.
“You moved her.”
“I moved six people.”
“Why?”
“Because a donor wanted another table.”
“Who placed Isolde beside me?”
“I did.”
Silence.
Isolde stared.
“Why?”
Genevieve looked directly at her.
“Because I recognized your name.”
Rowan's temper rose.
“You knew she was Thomas Hart's daughter.”
“I suspected.”
“And sat her next to me?”
“To see what she would do.”
Isolde actually laughed.
“You tested me?”
“I watched you.”
“For what?”
“To see whether you knew who Rowan was.”
Isolde's face hardened.
“I knew he was rich.”
Rowan glanced at her.
She shrugged.
“You were on the program.”
Fair.
Genevieve continued.
“You didn't mention Vale Holdings. You didn't mention the crash. You didn't mention Thomas.”
“So?”
“So I thought perhaps Marianne had kept you out of it.”
“Then why interfere?”
Genevieve looked at Rowan.
“Because your father was dying.”
Rowan froze.
Adrian had pancreatic cancer then.
Only the family knew how advanced it was.
He died four months later.
Genevieve had seen Isolde's name on the event roster.
She remembered Thomas.
Remembered Marianne.
She moved Isolde to Rowan's table because she wanted to observe her.
Not set them up.
Not romance.
Surveillance disguised as seating.
Then Rowan and Isolde spent almost the entire dinner talking.
Genevieve panicked.
The next morning she ordered the background investigation.
Rowan said:
“You introduced the situation you spent three years blaming her for.”
“I moved a place card.”
“You don't get to pretend that's nothing.”
“No.”
Genevieve's voice sharpened.
“But neither do you get to turn it into destiny.”
Good.
It wasn't.
Two people met.
They made choices afterward.
Genevieve's meddling created proximity, not marriage.
Isolde looked at Marianne's note.
“How did my mother know there was any chance I'd meet a Vale?”
Genevieve did not know.
That disturbed her.
Then Malcolm entered.
“Rowan.”
“What?”
“We found a man upstairs.”
Isolde's hand went to her stomach.
“Who?”
“Vendor badge says floral assistant.”
“Is he?”
“No.”
The man had been found near the west bedroom hall.
Not inside Rowan's room.
Not touching the lockbox.
But carrying a copied floor plan of the mansion.
And a photograph of the gray metal box.
Rowan's face changed.
Genevieve whispered:
“Julian.”
The man gave security a real name.
Evan Pike.
Licensed private investigator.
His phone showed his employer.
Not Julian Vale.
Vale Risk Consulting.
A family-owned security subsidiary controlled by—
Rowan.
He stared at Malcolm.
“What the hell is Vale Risk doing in my house?”
Malcolm looked uncomfortable.
“They say he was assigned under an executive-protection order.”
“Whose order?”
Malcolm held out the screen.
Authorized six months earlier.
Rowan's electronic signature.
Rowan stared.
He had signed the framework.
Broad security authority after a stalking incident involving Isolde.
He had allowed Vale Risk to deploy personnel at family events without case-by-case written approval.
He had never revoked it.
Another convenient delegation.
Genevieve looked at him.
May you like
“This family does love signing things it doesn't read.”
This time Rowan had nothing to say.
