Julian stared at me like he was seeing a stranger. “You’re — Cecilia Ferro?”
“My full legal name was printed right there on the marriage license you never once bothered actually reading.”
Margaux recovered her composure faster than anyone else at that table. Arrogance, I’d learned, tends to outlast reason by a wide margin. “This is theater,” she snapped. “Our hotel portfolio is worth billions of dollars.”
“On paper,” I said. “An expansion funded through inflated occupancy numbers, duplicated collateral, forged environmental approvals, and pension funds quietly diverted to cover up your construction losses.” I recited it the way I’d rehearsed it in my head at three in the morning, more than once, in the weeks leading up to that day — not because I’d expected to need it at my own wedding, but because some part of me, even then, had suspected I might.
I’d spent the previous six months combing through documents Julian left open, unguarded, on his home office computer. At first I’d assumed simple carelessness on his part. Then I’d found the shell companies routing payments to Margaux’s brother, the inspectors receiving luxury vacations timed suspiciously close to sign-offs, the falsified invoices laundered quietly through a network of supposed charities.
