“I want to propose a toast,” Grayson said, raising his glass. “To Tessa. For breathing new life into the project, and for making a house feel like a home. We’re lucky you found your way to Harbor Ridge.”
My throat tightened. “Thank you,” I whispered. “I’m the lucky one.”
At that exact moment, 500 miles away in Chicago, the atmosphere at the “wedding of the century” was beginning to sour.
Maya told me the story later. The dinner was over, and the guests were mingling. Derek was parading Lana around the room like a trophy. They approached a VIP section near the bar where Harold Doyle was sitting.
Harold was a legendary venture capitalist, old-school and no-nonsense. He’d always disliked Derek’s “fast and loose” business ethics, viewing him as a social climber with more ambition than substance. Harold was also several scotches deep.
Derek, puffing out his chest, tried to impress him. “Beautiful venue, isn’t it, Harold? We wanted something that reflected our status.”
Harold didn’t even look up from his drink. “It’s loud, Cole. I prefer the aesthetic of your ex-wife’s new place. I was in Harbor Ridge last week looking at property. Tessa’s the lead designer on the Silver Tides project. Investors are eating out of her hand. That girl has a golden mind.”
Derek’s smile faltered. “Yes, well, Tessa always preferred the quiet life.”
“Quiet?” Harold barked. “She’s sitting on a fortune! I heard through the grapevine that Nora left her a trust worth nearly two and a half million. Most women would have spent it by now, but Tessa? She’s locked it away and went back to work. That’s class. That’s old-money behavior. You walked away from a winner, Cole.”
The silence that followed was absolute. The investors at the table—men Derek was desperate to court—all turned to look at him.
Then came the final blow. A bank manager sitting nearby, who had clearly had enough of Lana’s boasting, spoke up. “It’s funny you mention money. Miss Brooks was in my office last week. She had to take out a high-interest personal loan just to cover the deposit for this ballroom. She was quite vocal about having to carry Mr. Cole because his credit lines were maxed out.”
Maya’s messages to me became jerky and frantic: “The social collapse is total. The investors literally turned their backs on him mid-sentence. Derek looks gray. He’s not shouting, but his face is… it’s crumpling. Lana is crying because the bank manager just outed her finances. People are pulling out their phones. Not to take photos of the bride—they’re recording the wreckage.”
The “power couple” facade didn’t just crack; it vaporized. The guests began to leave before the cake was even cut. Nobody wanted to be associated with a man who was publicly revealed as a broke fraud who had discarded a millionaire for a woman who was bankrupting them both.
Two weeks later, I was back in Harbor Ridge, working at my desk. A notification popped up on my screen: Urgent Verification Required: Withdrawal Request 4092.
I opened the document. It was a request for a $150,000 wire transfer to a company called Phoenix Consulting LLC. At the bottom was my signature. A perfect, “wet ink” replica.
My heart hammered against my ribs. It was an impossible forgery. But then I looked at the date on the notary stamp: October 14th.
I checked my calendar. On October 14th, I wasn’t in a notary’s office in Chicago. I was sixty feet up on a scaffold at the Silver Tides Inn, arguing with a foreman about plumbing.
I didn’t call Derek. I called Elena, a sharp-eyed attorney in Seattle. “We have a problem,” I said.
We met Derek in a glass-walled conference room on the 42nd floor of a building in Seattle. He looked terrible—sallow-skinned and hollow-eyed. He tried to play it off as a “miscommunication,” a “bridge loan” between former partners.
“I didn’t sign this, Derek,” I said, sliding the photo of me in my hard hat across the table. “And the IP logs show this request was uploaded from your home office.”
The threat of prison—wire fraud and identity theft—was the final nail. He signed a permanent restraining order and a confession that stayed in my lawyer’s vault. He walked out of that room a ghost, heading back to a life that had already moved on without him.
Six months later, the Silver Tides Inn opened. It was a masterpiece. At the gala, I stood on the balcony, looking at the water. I saw a technician kneeling on the floor, taping down power cables. He was wearing a faded black uniform.
When he looked up, our eyes met. It was Derek. He was a freelance hand, working the shadows of a room he once thought he owned. He looked away instantly, his shoulders hunching in shame.
I didn’t feel triumph. I just felt a profound, quiet peace. I turned back to the room, to Grayson and my friends, and for the first time in my life, the air was clear.
The story was over. And the pen was finally in my hand.
