Chapter 3 - The Groom's First Lie
I did not meet Greg in person.
I authorized a recorded call with my attorney, Vanessa Brooks, listening from her office in New York.
Greg appeared on the screen in a hotel room near the resort's ferry terminal, still wearing the cream-colored shirt from the ceremony.
He looked twenty years older.
“Elena, please.”
“Start with the truth.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Sarah told your parents my family had rented the island.”
“And you corrected her?”
His silence answered me.
“Greg.”
“I should have.”
Vanessa leaned toward the camera.
“Your failure to correct a social boast is not our principal concern.”
Greg stared down at his hands.
“I know.”
“Then describe what you saw on the deck.”
He looked up sharply.
“Sarah pushed Mia.”
The words landed with an awful clarity.
“Was it accidental?” Vanessa asked.
“No.”
Greg's voice cracked.
“She was furious about the dress, and she pushed her.”
For the first time since the fall, I felt something other than panic.
It was not relief.
It was the realization that the truth had survived the first hours of my family's lies.
Greg wiped his face.
“I tried to go down there.”
“You remained on the terrace,” I said.
He flinched.
“I froze.”
“When my father hit her?”
“I saw that too.”
“Then don't describe yourself as a hero who couldn't move fast enough.”
He nodded miserably.
“I won't.”
Vanessa asked about the island invoice again.
Greg explained that Sarah had found a public-facing brochure for the resort months earlier.
She knew it belonged to a holding company, but not who controlled that company.
When Elena's invitation arrived through a discreet events office, Sarah persuaded Greg to let her parents believe his father was paying.
“Your mother liked me better when she thought I was rich,” he said.
“My mother likes anyone she can use to hurt me.”
Greg swallowed.
“Sarah told me you worked in accounting.”
“I do work in accounting.”
He frowned.
“I run the financial strategy of the company I founded.”
His mouth opened.
“The island belongs to your company?”
“To a trust whose ownership I control.”
He stared at me.
“She knew you had money.”
“Did she?”
Greg reached into his jacket and unfolded a pale envelope.
Two weeks before the wedding, Sarah had asked him to sign a one-page statement describing the event as a gift from his family.
“I thought it was for the wedding planner,” he said.
Vanessa made him hold it steady so she could read the language.
It wasn't merely a sentimental note.
It was a declaration of payment by the groom's relatives.
At the bottom was my company's billing reference.
And beneath it, in Sarah's handwriting, were three words.
KEEP ELENA UNAWARE.
I stared at the screen.
For years, Sarah had pretended not to understand the life I had built.
Now there was evidence she had been carefully concealing it.
“Send the original to Vanessa,” I said.
Greg nodded.
“There's something else.”
Before he could finish, a door slammed behind him.
Sarah's voice erupted from the hallway.
May you like
“Greg, I know you're talking to her!”
