Chapter 4: What Savannah Knew
I didn't answer immediately.
I set my grandmother's ring on the vanity beside me.
Carefully.
Like it deserved a better surface than this conversation.
"Enough," I said.
Savannah sat down on the edge of the chaise.
The ivory skirt of my dress pooled around her.
She didn't offer to take it off.
"He loves you," she said.
"I need you to know that."
"That's an interesting place to start."
"I mean it."
"Savannah.
You are wearing my dress and my grandmother's ring on my wedding day.
Do not tell me what he feels."
She looked at her hands.
At the pale line where the ring had been.
"It wasn't supposed to go this far."
"What wasn't?"
She was quiet for a moment.
Then: "He asked me to try on the dress."
The room went very still.
"He asked you."
"Three days ago.
He said he wanted to see how it photographed.
For the society page spread.
He said the photographer needed to test the lighting in this room and the original dress would show better against the window."
I stared at her.
"And you believed that."
"I wanted to believe it." She looked up.
"That's different."
"He told you to wear my grandmother's ring too?"
A pause.
Too long.
"Savannah."
"He said your mother had left it in the suite by accident.
That he was going to return it after the ceremony.
He asked me to hold onto it so it didn't get lost."
I sat down.
Not because I was weak.
Because I needed to think clearly and standing was using energy I couldn't spare.
"He planned this," I said.
"I don't know what he planned."
"You were standing in front of that mirror when I walked in.
Diane was taking pictures.
He was watching.
That is not an accident."
Savannah's hands pressed flat against the skirt of my dress.
"Claire.
I have known Ethan since we were twenty-two.
I know what he's capable of and what he isn't."
"Then tell me."
She looked at me for a long moment.
"He needed this wedding to happen," she said.
"The board required it."
"What?"
"Two of his lead investors — Hargrove and the Delacroix group — they had a morality clause written into the term sheet.
Personal stability.
They wanted him married before the Series B closed.
It was a condition."
The air in the room changed.
"He told you this."
"He told me everything." Her voice was very quiet.
"He always has."
"And the dress?
The ring?
The photos Diane was taking?"
Savannah looked toward the window.
"I think," she said slowly, "that he wanted insurance.
If you walked out today, he needed to be able to say you were unstable.
Irrational.
That you ruined the wedding over nothing.
Diane's recording would support that."
I looked at Diane's empty spot by the window.
She had slipped out while we were talking.
"Where did she go?"
Savannah turned.
Her face went careful.
"I don't know."
But she did know.
I could see it in the way she stopped breathing for half a second.
I picked up my phone.
My father had texted three minutes ago: *Everything okay up there?
People are starting to ask.*
I typed back: *Stay where you are.
Do not let anyone leave.*
Then I called my lawyer.
She answered on the first ring.
"Renata," I said.
"I need you to pull the co-signatory clause on the Cole Technologies bridge loan agreement and tell me exactly what my rights are if I withdraw consent before Monday's draw."
A brief pause.
Then Renata's voice, precise and unhurried: "Give me four minutes."
I set the phone on the vanity and looked at Savannah.
"You said he needed this wedding to happen," I said.
"What happens to him if it doesn't?"
Savannah looked at the door.
"The Hargrove group pulls out," she said.
"And if Hargrove pulls, Delacroix follows.
The whole round collapses."
"How much?"
She hesitated.
"Savannah.
How much?"
"Eighty-six million."
My phone lit up.
Renata.
I picked it up.
"Talk to me," I said.
"Your co-signatory status gives you full withdrawal rights before the draw executes," Renata said.
"If you file a formal withdrawal before Monday at nine a.m., the loan agreement is void.
Marcus Webb would be legally obligated to return all escrowed funds to the lenders."
"And the Series B?"
"Without the bridge, the Series B has no funding base.
It collapses."
"What does Ethan lose?"
"Everything he's built in the last three years," Renata said.
"Possibly more, depending on his personal guarantees."
I looked at Savannah.
She had heard enough.
She stood up, slowly, and reached behind herself for the buttons on my dress.
"I'll change now," she said.
"Leave it," I said.
"I'm not wearing it today anyway."
I walked to the door.
"Claire." Savannah's voice stopped me.
"He's going to say this was all me.
That I manipulated him.
That he didn't know what he was doing."
I looked back at her.
"I know," I said.
"That's why I need you to write down everything you just told me.
Right now.
Before he comes back upstairs."
Her hand went to her collarbone.
"He'll never forgive me."
"He was never going to marry you either," I said.
"You know that."
The color drained from her face.
I opened the door.
Ethan was standing in the hallway.
May you like
He had not gone downstairs.
He had been listening.
