Chapter 16 - The Deposition
The new year began with lawyers.
Emma found that almost funny.
For most of December, she had imagined January as a clean line.
A new calendar.
A new year.
A month with no wedding date circled in red.
Instead, on January fourth, Hannah called to tell her Cole's attorneys wanted to depose her in the trust lawsuit.
"They want to establish Adrian had a personal motive to investigate Cole," Hannah said.
Emma stood beside the sample wall at Bennett Studio.
"Meaning me."
"Meaning you."
"Do I have to do it?"
"Most likely."
Emma looked through the glass wall of her office.
Her team was discussing a restaurant project as if no Marston had ever existed.
She envied them for thirty seconds.
Then she remembered she had built that normality herself.
"Schedule it."
The deposition took place ten days later.
Cole sat with his attorneys on one side of a long table.
Adrian was not present.
His counsel was.
Emma sat beside Hannah.
A court reporter raised a hand and administered the oath.
Cole's lawyer began with ordinary questions.
Emma's name.
Her business.
Her ownership of Pier Nine.
Her relationship with Cole.
Then he asked when she first became aware that Adrian Marston had romantic feelings for her.
Hannah objected to the wording.
Emma answered anyway.
"After I discovered Cole's affair with my sister."
The lawyer glanced at Cole.
"Did Mr. Adrian Marston tell you he had those feelings?"
"Not in those words."
"Did he tell you he cared for you?"
"Yes."
"When?"
Emma gave the date.
"Before or after he suspended Cole from Marston Companies?"
"After the initial suspension."
The lawyer leaned forward.
"So Mr. Marston took adverse employment action against his brother and then acknowledged a personal interest in his brother's former fiancée."
Hannah spoke sharply.
"That is argument, not a question."
The lawyer rephrased.
"Did Adrian Marston benefit personally from the end of your engagement?"
Emma looked at him.
"Not from me."
The lawyer paused.
"What do you mean?"
"I did not become his because I stopped being Cole's."
Across the table, Cole looked down.
The lawyer tried again.
"Have you had a romantic relationship with Adrian Marston?"
"No."
That was true.
There had been coffee.
Walks.
A few late phone calls.
One Christmas message.
Nothing Emma would call a relationship.
The lawyer shifted to the Pier Nine option.
"Were you aware Adrian Marston once signed an option agreement to purchase the property?"
"Not until December."
"Did you feel he should have told you sooner?"
"Yes."
Cole looked up.
His lawyer noticed.
"Did that omission affect your trust in him?"
"Yes."
Cole's shoulders changed slightly.
Emma saw hope appear in a place it did not belong.
The lawyer continued.
"So you agree Adrian withheld material information from you."
"Yes."
"Just as you claim Cole did."
Hannah objected again.
Emma raised a hand.
"I can answer."
She looked directly at the lawyer.
"Both men withheld information."
Cole watched her.
"The difference is what happened when I confronted them."
The lawyer frowned.
"Explain."
"Adrian gave my lawyer the full historical file, admitted he should have been clearer, and did not ask me to change my legal decisions to protect him."
Emma turned her eyes toward Cole.
"Cole denied using my credentials after the bank traced the submission to his office."
Cole's jaw tightened.
"He denied the Pier Nine project influenced our engagement until documents showed otherwise."
Her voice remained even.
"He told my sister he would leave me after two years while telling me we were planning children."
The lawyer interrupted.
"That is beyond the scope."
"Then stop comparing them."
Silence filled the room.
Hannah looked down to hide a reaction.
The lawyer moved to another topic.
For the next hour, he tried to establish that Emma's anger at Cole made her a willing ally of Adrian.
Emma answered every question the same way she had answered the committee.
Dates.
Documents.
What she knew.
What she did not know.
When the deposition ended, Cole remained seated while the attorneys packed their files.
Emma stood.
"Emma."
She paused.
Hannah looked at her.
Emma gave a small nod.
Cole stepped closer but stayed on his side of the table.
"You really don't think he used this situation?"
Emma felt exhausted rather than angry.
"I think you need Adrian to be the reason your life changed."
"He is."
"No."
"He fired me."
"The board fired you."
"He built the board."
"Your father built most of it."
Cole looked away.
Emma lowered her voice.
"You know what the worst part is?"
He looked back.
"If Adrian had never existed, you still would have lied to me."
Cole's face changed.
"Bell still would have wanted Pier Nine."
"Tessa still would have been my sister."
"My signature still would not have been yours to use."
Emma picked up her bag.
"You keep treating Adrian like the villain because then you get to be the man reacting to something."
She shook her head.
"You were not reacting when you walked into that hotel room with Tessa."
Cole said nothing.
Emma walked out.
Adrian was not waiting in the hallway.
He had promised not to come.
But when Emma stepped outside, she found a paper cup on the reception desk with her name written on it.
The receptionist smiled.
"A delivery came ten minutes ago."
Emma looked at the label.
Her usual coffee order.
No note.
She knew who sent it.
She took one sip.
Then she texted Adrian.
You remembered the extra cinnamon.
His reply came a minute later.
You complain loudly when people forget it.
Emma smiled.
Then another message arrived.
How did it go?
She typed carefully.
I told the truth, including the part where you should have told me about the option.
His response took longer.
Good.
Emma stared at the word.
Good.
No defense.
No request to soften it.
She realized trust was returning in inches rather than miles.
That felt safer.
Two days later, Hannah called again.
This time her voice was different.
"We listened to Tessa's flash drive."
Emma sat down.
"All of it?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"There is a recording you need to hear."
Emma closed her eyes.
"How bad?"
Hannah exhaled.
"Bad enough that Cole's trust lawyers will probably change strategy after they hear it."
The coffee cup from Adrian remained on the reception desk in Emma's memory long after the deposition ended.
It was such a small thing compared with everything else.
That was why it mattered.
Cole had always believed grand gestures repaired ordinary dishonesty.
Flowers after arguments.
Weekend trips after canceled dinners.
Expensive gifts after weeks when Emma felt alone beside him.
Adrian had done the opposite.
He had sent coffee and stayed away because she asked him to stay away.
Emma was beginning to understand how powerful restraint could feel when it came from someone who had the power to intrude.
That evening she drove to her parents' house.
Marianne was alone in the kitchen slicing apples for a pie.
The sight was so normal that Emma nearly turned around.
Then Marianne looked up.
"How did today go?"
"I testified."
Marianne set down the knife.
"About Adrian too?"
Emma nodded.
"I told them he should have disclosed the old option earlier."
Marianne's face tightened with concern.
"Will that hurt him?"
Emma took off her coat.
"Maybe."
"And he knew you were going to say that?"
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
"Good."
Marianne blinked.
Emma almost smiled.
"Exactly."
Her mother returned to the apples.
"Your father would call that either maturity or insanity."
"Probably both."
They worked in silence for several minutes.
Emma took the second knife and began slicing.
Marianne watched her carefully.
"Can I ask you something without making it about me?"
Emma gave her a look.
"That introduction does not inspire confidence."
Marianne nodded.
"Fair."
She tried again.
"Do you think you would have married Cole if I had told you what Tessa said two weeks earlier?"
Emma stopped slicing.
She had imagined that alternate timeline many times.
In some versions, she confronted Cole and he confessed.
In others, he lied convincingly and the wedding went forward anyway.
In some, Tessa denied everything and Emma believed her because believing her sister would have been easier than detonating a wedding.
"I don't know," Emma said.
Marianne's shoulders dropped.
"I keep thinking if I had told you, none of this would have happened."
"Some of it would have."
"What do you mean?"
"The loan application already existed."
Emma placed another apple slice in the bowl.
"Harbor East already existed."
Another slice.
"Cole had already met Bell."
Another.
"The affair had already been happening for months."
Marianne's eyes filled.
Emma looked at her.
"You made a bad choice, Mom."
Marianne nodded.
"I know."
"But you did not create Cole's choices."
Her mother's mouth trembled.
"I don't want you carrying more responsibility than belongs to you just because guilt feels like control."
Marianne stared at her.
Emma realized the sentence applied to herself too.
For weeks, she had replayed every moment when she might have noticed something.
Cole turning his phone over at dinner.
Tessa disappearing during the lake weekend.
A late meeting that now looked suspicious.
A hotel charge she had never questioned.
She had treated hindsight like evidence that she failed herself.
But trust was not stupidity just because someone exploited it.
Trust was information given honestly and used dishonestly by someone else.
Emma put down the knife.
"I need to stop trying to find the version where I was smart enough to prevent all of it."
Marianne looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because then I'm still making his lies my responsibility."
Her mother reached across the counter.
She did not touch Emma immediately.
She waited.
Emma looked at the offered hand.
Then she placed her own over it.
The contact lasted only a moment.
It was enough.
Later, Daniel came home carrying groceries and found them finishing the pie.
He looked between them.
"Did I miss a summit?"
Emma smiled.
"No treaties were signed."
"Good."
Daniel unpacked milk.
"Treaties are how people sneak in conditions."
Marianne rolled her eyes.
Emma laughed.
May you like
For the first time since the canceled wedding, laughter at her parents' kitchen table did not feel like betrayal of what had happened.
It felt like proof the family could contain both damage and ordinary life.
