Chapter 2 - The Sale That Never Closed
Lucas locked the backstage doors.
“Everyone stays.”
Bianca stared at him.
“You cannot detain people.”
“I’m preserving a scene involving corporate records that may have been concealed inside company property.”
“You’re a hotel-school graduate playing detective.”
“I have security outside.”
Lucas looked at Maya.
“Did you record everything?”
“From the moment Bianca accused Elena.”
“Back it up somewhere she cannot reach.”
Bianca gave a disbelieving smile.
“So now employees are stealing internal material?”
Maya’s face hardened.
“You told someone to sabotage Sophie’s gown.”
“I gave a design instruction.”
“Your design instruction could have sent her down thirty feet of runway with the side structure separating.”
Bianca looked toward Sophie.
“I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
Sophie laughed once.
“You created the danger, then planned to rescue me from it.”
Bianca said nothing.
Lucas held Celeste’s termination document under the makeup lights.
It was dated June 18, three years earlier.
The official purchase agreement transferring Celeste’s 51 percent voting stake to Bianca Moretti Design Holdings had allegedly closed June 30.
Celeste died July 22.
“This predates closing by twelve days,” Lucas said.
Bianca folded her arms.
“A deal can be terminated and reinstated.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
“Show me.”
“The closing binder contains everything.”
Celeste’s letter said not to trust the closing binder.
Lucas looked at Sophie.
“Read.”
Sophie hesitated.
“It says for me only.”
Bianca’s mouth curved.
“Then perhaps your mother wanted family gossip, not corporate governance.”
Sophie looked straight at her.
“Get comfortable.”
She continued reading.
You will be angry with Lucas. Try not to be angry before you know what he knew. He made mistakes. So did I.
Lucas looked away.
Sophie noticed.
“What does that mean?”
“Keep reading.”
Vale House was in worse financial condition than either of you understood after the Milano expansion failed. I considered selling control to Bianca because she offered capital when banks would not. I signed a purchase agreement. I did not close it.
Bianca’s chin lifted.
Celeste continued:
Before closing, I discovered that Bianca’s licensing company had been receiving money from Vale House through contracts I never approved. I terminated the sale and revoked every proxy associated with it.
Sophie stopped.
Lucas looked toward Bianca.
“What licensing company?”
Bianca replied, “Vale House has hundreds of royalty arrangements.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Sophie read the name written by her mother.
“‘Morrow Design IP LLC.’”
Elena whispered, “I’ve seen that.”
Everyone turned.
“Where?” Lucas asked.
“Trim invoices. Archive reproduction rights. Pattern licensing.”
Bianca said, “Because Morrow legally owns certain techniques I developed.”
Celeste’s letter contradicted her.
Morrow does not own what it claims to own. Some registrations were copied from Vale House archive designs, including work created before Bianca joined us.
Sophie felt cold.
Celeste had built Vale House from a twelve-person atelier into an international fashion empire.
Bianca joined nine years later as a junior designer.
Eventually she became creative director, then a celebrity in her own right.
The public narrative had always been beautiful.
Two brilliant women.
One house.
One legacy.
The letter described something else.
When I confronted Bianca, she told me that challenging the Morrow contracts would expose lender problems Lucas had been trying to solve. She knew exactly what I feared: losing the company while I was dying and leaving both of you inside the wreckage.
Lucas closed his eyes.
Sophie turned.
“What lender problems?”
“Not here.”
“That is exactly what she said I’d be angry about.”
“I said not here.”
Sophie’s voice sharpened.
“You hid something from me.”
“And Mom told you to wait until you knew.”
That stopped her.
The line hurt because he was right.
Bianca watched them carefully.
Division was useful.
She knew it.
Sophie returned to the letter.
The termination document in this gown is an original counterpart. Nora Kline has evidence of my instructions. I did not leave the original in the corporate legal department because I no longer trusted Gideon Shaw.
Lucas immediately called Nora.
No answer.
It was nearly eight in the evening.
He left a message.
Then he called Vale House outside counsel.
Bianca reached for her own phone.
Lucas said, “Don’t.”
She laughed.
“You have no authority to prevent me from contacting counsel.”
“You’re right.”
He looked at the head of security.
“Please document everyone leaving and preserve backstage camera footage.”
Bianca’s expression tightened.
“That I cannot stop.”
The runway beyond the doors continued without Sophie.
Vale House’s opening looks crossed the stage while its most important people stood around a destroyed gown.
Maya checked social media.
“We have a problem.”
Lucas looked at her.
“What?”
“Someone posted that Sophie attacked Bianca backstage.”
Sophie’s stomach sank.
A blurry photograph showed Bianca on the chair with Sophie standing over her.
The caption read:
VALE HOUSE HEIRESS ASSAULTS ICONIC DESIGNER MINUTES BEFORE SHOW.
Lucas stared at Sophie.
“Did anyone besides this room see you hit her?”
“At least twenty people.”
Bianca smiled faintly.
“The truth has a way of escaping.”
“So does edited truth,” Maya said.
Sophie looked at her.
“Post the recording.”
Lucas immediately said, “No.”
“Why?”
“Because we don’t release evidence emotionally.”
“She’s destroying me publicly.”
“And if that corporate document is authentic, this is larger than your reputation.”
Sophie hated him for being right.
Again.
Bianca moved toward the door.
“You have a show to run.”
Lucas blocked her.
“You’re not going back to the control booth.”
“Excuse me?”
“Until our lawyers determine what this document is, you have no unsupervised access to corporate records.”
Bianca’s eyes became dangerous.
“I own this company.”
Lucas held up Celeste’s termination.
“Maybe you don’t.”
For the first time, Bianca looked less like an international designer and more like a woman who had just realized the floor beneath her might be borrowed.
Then Sophie noticed something in the photograph from the envelope.
She moved beneath the light.
Celeste and Nora stood in front of the archive cage.
In the reflection of the cage’s metal panel stood a third person.
A man.
Sophie enlarged the photograph with Maya’s phone.
Lucas saw him first.
“Gideon.”
The former general counsel had been there when Celeste documented the ARGENT box.
Yet Celeste’s letter said she did not trust him.
Sophie turned the photograph over.
A date had been written on the back.
June 19.
One day after Celeste terminated Bianca’s stock purchase.
May you like
And beneath the date, Celeste had added six words:
He knows the sale was dead.
