Chapter 9 - Savannah's Bargain
Savannah agreed to meet at Julian's office the next morning.
She refused to enter if my mother was present.
I refused to meet if Julian was not.
We compromised by placing my mother in another conference room where she could be called if needed.
Savannah arrived wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap.
She looked nothing like the woman who had walked through my wedding reception in designer heels two days earlier.
She carried a canvas tote against her chest.
Julian opened the conference room door.
"You can sit anywhere you like."
Savannah looked at the two visible office cameras mounted near the ceiling.
"Are those recording?"
"The building uses security cameras in common areas."
He pointed to the conference room.
"This room is not being secretly recorded."
The word secretly made her flinch.
I sat across from her.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she removed her sunglasses.
Her eyes were swollen.
"You hate me."
I looked at her.
"You carried a hidden camera into my wedding-night bedroom."
She swallowed.
"I know."
"You kissed my husband."
"He kissed me."
"You stood there for a long time."
She looked down.
"Yes."
"You wore my dress."
"Yes."
"You took my grandmother's necklace."
Her face tightened.
"I shouldn't have done that."
"Why did you?"
She hesitated.
"Because I wanted to hurt you."
The honesty stunned me more than another excuse would have.
Julian remained silent.
I leaned back.
"Why?"
Savannah's eyes filled.
"Because every time Ethan chose you, I felt like I disappeared."
"He didn't choose me."
She laughed bitterly.
"He married you."
"While sleeping with you?"
She looked away.
There was the answer.
"How long?"
"Claire."
"How long were you sleeping with my husband?"
Her voice was barely audible.
"On and off."
"For how long?"
She wiped beneath one eye.
"Two years."
I stared at her.
The room became distant.
Two years.
Half our engagement.
Months before my grandmother died.
Months after.
During wedding planning.
During couples counseling.
During the weekend Ethan proposed that we write private vows because he wanted our marriage to be more honest than our parents' marriages.
I almost laughed at the memory.
"Did you sleep with him after he proposed?"
"Yes."
"After I asked you to be my bridesmaid?"
She closed her eyes.
"Yes."
"Did you sleep with him the week of the wedding?"
Silence.
I already knew.
"Yes," she whispered.
My hands went numb.
Julian slid a box of tissues toward me.
I did not take one.
Savannah reached into her tote and pulled out an old phone.
"This is why I came."
She placed it on the table.
"My previous phone."
Julian did not touch it.
"What is on it?"
"Messages."
"Between you and Ethan?"
"Yes."
"Original message database or screenshots?"
"Original messages."
"Has the phone been altered?"
"Not since I stopped using it."
Julian asked whether she was voluntarily offering access to her own device for her own messages.
She said yes.
He told her he would prefer a forensic copy rather than casual scrolling if the material might become evidence.
Savannah looked at me.
"There are things on there you are going to hate."
"I already hate enough."
"No."
Her voice cracked.
"You don't understand."
I looked at her.
"Then explain."
She took a long breath.
"Ethan recorded me too."
"When?"
"At his lake cabin last year."
"You mean Derek's cabin?"
"No."
She shook her head.
"Grant's cabin."
I did not know Grant owned one.
Savannah continued.
"Ethan and I argued."
"About what?"
"You."
Of course.
"I told him I was tired of being hidden."
"He said you were useful."
I stared at her.
"Useful?"
She nodded.
"He said marrying you solved problems he had spent years trying to solve."
My throat tightened.
"What problems?"
"Money."
"His father."
"Northstar."
"And Morgan House."
Julian leaned forward.
"What exactly did he say about Morgan House?"
Savannah rubbed her palms against her jeans.
"He said Peter Morgan had a buyer lined up for the older properties."
"He said Claire would never vote for the sale if her mother opposed it."
"But a spouse could influence her."
I looked at Julian.
He did not interrupt.
Savannah continued.
"At first, Ethan talked like he just wanted you to see the financial logic."
"Then Grant started talking about a proxy."
"Peter said if Ethan could control your vote for one meeting, the deal would pass."
My stomach tightened.
"What did Ethan get?"
Savannah hesitated.
"A referral fee."
"How much?"
"I heard three million."
Julian's face hardened.
"From whom?"
"I don't know."
"Northstar?"
"Maybe."
"Peter?"
"Maybe both."
I felt dizzy.
Three million dollars.
Enough to cover part of Ethan's looming debt payment.
Enough to explain why my birthday mattered.
Enough to explain the postnup.
"Why the cameras?"
Savannah looked at me.
"Because you started asking questions."
"What questions?"
"About the properties."
I remembered dinner three months earlier when Peter casually mentioned selling two historic hotels.
I had said I wanted to see renovation projections before supporting any sale.
Ethan had been unusually interested afterward.
He asked what percentage I owned.
I gave him a vague answer.
He asked when I could vote independently.
I told him after my birthday.
I thought he was finally taking interest in my family business.
Instead, I had given him a deadline.
Savannah looked down.
"He started recording conversations because he wanted to know what your mother and uncles were planning."
I felt sick.
"And you knew?"
"Not at first."
"When did you learn?"
"Two months ago."
"And you said nothing."
"He had video of me."
"Doing what?"
She looked humiliated.
"Being with him."
I understood.
He had secretly recorded their affair too.
"He threatened you?"
"Not directly."
"What does that mean?"
"He showed me a clip."
"He said if things got messy, everybody's private choices might become public."
Julian's face went cold.
"That is closer to a threat than you seem to understand."
Savannah nodded.
"I know that now."
I looked at her.
"So why did you help him after that?"
Her answer made me angrier than anything else she had said.
"Because I thought if he married you and got what he needed, he would leave you."
I stared at her.
"You thought humiliating me would help him leave me?"
"He told me the marriage was temporary."
"How temporary?"
"A year."
I could not speak.
Savannah cried silently now.
"He said once the company deal was done and his debt was stable, he would divorce you."
"He said the prenup and postnup structure would protect him."
"He said we would finally be together."
I looked at the woman I had asked to stand beside me on my wedding day.
She had not just wanted my husband.
She had been waiting for my marriage to serve its financial purpose and expire.
"And the kiss?"
Savannah wiped her face.
"That was my idea."
"Why?"
"I wanted one moment where you knew he still chose me."
The cruelty was so childish that it almost made the larger conspiracy more horrifying.
Millions of dollars.
Corporate votes.
Hidden cameras.
And beneath all of it, Savannah wanted to win a high school competition that had existed mostly in her own head.
I looked at Julian.
"I want the phone preserved."
Savannah nodded quickly.
"Fine."
Then she reached into the tote again.
This time she removed a small envelope.
Inside was a USB drive.
"What is that?" Julian asked.
Savannah swallowed.
"A copy of something Ethan kept on the storage drive."
My heart started pounding.
"You said you didn't know what was on it."
"I lied."
I almost stood.
Julian raised one hand toward me.
"Let her finish."
Savannah stared at the USB drive.
"Three weeks ago, Ethan asked me to help him find a video."
"He logged into the drive from my apartment."
"I watched him enter the password."
"Later, I copied one folder."
"Why?"
"Because I was scared he would use something against me again."
Julian did not touch the USB.
"What is in the folder?"
Savannah looked directly at me.
"Recordings of you."
My mouth went dry.
"How many?"
She whispered the answer.
"Hundreds."
Then she added the part that turned fear into something much worse.
"And Claire, some of them are from before you and Ethan moved into that house."
Paul's report showed that Ethan had not watched every recording.
That fact should have comforted me.
It did not.
He had used motion flags and audio markers to find conversations containing certain names.
Morgan.
Peter.
Mom.
Julian.
Trust.
Vote.
The system did not need him to sit for hundreds of hours.
It helped him search my private life like a database.
The technology made the violation feel colder.
At least ordinary eavesdropping required someone to be present.
This required only storage space and patience.
Paul also found login records showing Ethan accessed the archive late at night after I went to sleep.
Several sessions lasted more than an hour.
One occurred on our anniversary.
That night, Ethan had taken me to dinner and given me a bracelet.
I remembered coming home happy.
I remembered falling asleep against him on the sofa.
The login record showed that thirty minutes after I went to bed, he opened three recordings of me discussing Morgan House with my mother.
The next morning he made pancakes.
That ordinary memory became almost impossible to hold.
My mother asked if I wanted the bracelet back from the house.
I said no at first.
Then I changed my mind.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because it is mine."
That became another small rule.
I would not abandon my own belongings just because Ethan had attached lies to them.
Some things I would keep.
Some I would sell.
Some I would throw away.
May you like
But the choice would be mine, not another thing he decided through his behavior.
