Chapter 12 - Victoria Returns With Her Own Truth
Victoria contacted me six months after the canceled wedding.
I expected awkwardness.
Instead she wanted coffee.
She had ended the engagement permanently.
Not because Jonathan was a bad man.
Because she realized she had been preparing to marry into a system where
appearances routinely outranked consent.
She also discovered her own father had encouraged the marriage partly
because a Cross-Vance alliance benefited both families politically and
financially.
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“We were a merger with flowers.”
She had moved to Washington and returned to legal work.
She gave me documents showing Senator Cross had discussed a future Vance
restructuring with Eleanor months before the wedding.
Nothing proved criminal conduct.
But it showed the wedding had been treated as a business event by people
around the couple.
I gave the documents to the appropriate attorneys.
Then Victoria asked:
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You believed a story.”
“So did Jonathan.”
“Yes.”
“What’s the difference?”
I thought about it.
“You walked away when you learned the story wasn’t enough.”
May you like
Victoria nodded.
That was all.
