Chapter 13 - BEFORE THE WEDDING
The title of the report made Eliza feel as though the floor had tilted.
Her romance had begun with flowers, attentive questions, and an extraordinary coincidence at a charity event.
The report suggested the coincidence had not been a coincidence at all.
Grant had paid investigators to map Wade's businesses and family connections.
He knew Eliza would inherit certain beneficial interests someday.
He knew she worked in marketing and liked books about travel.
He knew the café where she bought coffee on Fridays.
That last detail made her step away from the desk.
"He studied me," she whispered.
Naomi urged caution about the report's authorship and the conclusions it supported.
The invoices and correspondence nonetheless raised questions that demanded investigation.
Wade sat very still while Eliza read.
"I thought he didn't know about the company," he said.
"Maybe he knew enough to want me and not enough to respect me," she answered.
The distinction was devastating.
Grant had apparently hoped marriage would eventually unlock access to the Harrow fortune.
When Wade made the residential protections clear, Grant began presenting himself as the sole architect of the family's wealth.
He had taken credit for the house, then the renovations, then the children's lifestyle.
Eliza remembered how her father had insisted on separate financial protections before the wedding.
She had accused Wade of distrusting Grant.
Wade had apologized to keep peace between them.
"I should not have lied to you about how much I owned," Wade said now.
Eliza looked up.
"No. You should have trusted me with the truth."
She asked for copies of the reports, then placed them aside.
For now she wanted to pick Owen up from his preschool session and hear about the picture he had painted.
On the drive home, she noticed a dark SUV following two cars back.
She took the route recommended in her safety plan and called the appropriate contact.
The SUV turned away before reaching the well-lit pickup point.
No one could establish who owned it from that glimpse.
Yet the encounter brought Grant's old threat back to her ears: People believe a calm man with records.
Eliza was going to have records of her own.
That evening she gave her attorney a notebook from the first year of the marriage.
Its pages began with happy memories.
Halfway through, the entries changed.
On a page dated three months after Owen's birth, she had written a line she no longer remembered writing.
May you like
If something happens to me, look in the sewing box.
