For several seconds, nobody moved.
The music had stopped.
The applause had vanished.
Even the waiters seemed frozen between tables, trays suspended at shoulder height as they stared toward the stage.
Julian's face had lost every trace of color.
Elise looked worse.
Her champagne glass trembled in her hand.
I watched her set it down.
She missed the table by several centimeters.
The glass tipped, spilling champagne across the white linen.
Nobody looked at the stain.
Every eye remained fixed on me.
Julian recovered first.
He stepped toward me with a smile that looked painfully rehearsed.
“Clara,” he said into the microphone he still held. “You shouldn't be here.”
A murmur moved through the ballroom.
I lifted my microphone.
“I've been told that several times recently.”
Someone laughed nervously.
Julian's smile tightened.
“This is a medical matter. You need rest.”
“I rested for three weeks.”
His jaw clenched.
“That isn't what I meant.”
“I know exactly what you meant.”
Elise moved toward him.
“Clara, please.”
I turned to her.
“Please what?”
Her eyes flickered.
“You've been through something terrible.”
“So have you.”
She stopped.
I could almost see her trying to calculate which version of herself the audience would believe.
The grieving sister.
The loyal employee.
The woman who had supposedly spent weeks worrying about me.
She chose the first.
“I was terrified when I heard about the explosion,” she said.
I nodded slowly.
“You should have been.”
The room became quieter.
Julian stepped between us.
“This isn't appropriate.”
I looked at him.
“Neither was signing away my company while I was unconscious.”
That sentence landed differently.
People began whispering.
The chairman of the board, Mr. Henderson, stood near the front table.
His expression had changed.
He looked from Julian to me.
“Clara,” he said, “what exactly are you alleging?”
Julian immediately answered.
“She isn't well.”
I turned toward Henderson.
“I am well enough to remember what I signed.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“No.”
I held up a folder.
“I came here because my husband announced a five-hundred-million-euro sale of a company he did not own.”
Julian's voice sharpened.
“The transfer documents are legal.”
“Are they?”
I nodded toward the screens behind him.
Henri's signal appeared.
The first image filled the enormous projection wall.
A scanned page.
A bank transfer.
Then another.
Then another.
A murmur swept through the ballroom.
Julian turned toward the screen.
The color drained from his face.
The transfers showed payments from accounts connected to Maison Dubois into shell companies registered in Luxembourg, Cyprus, and the British Virgin Islands.
Each payment had a name.
Each name connected to a person involved in the proposed merger.
The room erupted in whispers.
Julian looked at Henri backstage.
Then at Elise.
Then at me.
“What is this?”
“Your accounting.”
“That is fabricated.”
I shook my head.
“The original files came from your encrypted drive.”
The screen changed.
A message appeared.
Make sure the cut is clean.
Julian stopped breathing.
The next message appeared.
Don't leave metal shavings.
A woman near the front covered her mouth.
Someone said, “Oh my God.”
Elise took a step backward.
Julian grabbed her arm.
She pulled away.
“Don't touch me.”
He stared at her.
For the first time that evening, they looked like two strangers trapped in the same room.
I continued.
“You told everyone the laboratory explosion was an accident.”
Julian raised his voice.
“Because it was.”
The screen changed again.
A photograph of the damaged valve appeared.
Then a magnified image of the cut.
A forensic report followed.
The words deliberate mechanical scoring appeared in black across the screen.
The ballroom went completely silent.
Julian looked at me.
“You had no right to access those files.”
“I had every right.”
“This is a private corporate matter.”
“You attempted to murder the controlling shareholder.”
“That is insane.”
Elise suddenly spoke.
“She did this herself.”
I turned toward her.
The accusation stunned even Julian.
Elise's voice shook.
“She was under enormous pressure. She had been threatening to destroy the company rather than sell it. She could have damaged the equipment herself.”
A few people looked uncertain.
She seized on that uncertainty.
“She wanted revenge.”
I smiled.
Not because it was funny.
Because I had expected it.
“Then let's test your story.”
Henri appeared at the side of the stage.
He carried two small glass bottles.
The audience watched as he approached.
I took them from him.
One bottle contained the original L'Héritage.
The other contained Elise's replacement formula.
I held up the first.
“This is the perfume my father created.”
Then the second.
“This is the version Elise planned to launch tonight.”
Julian stepped toward me.
“Don't.”
I ignored him.
“Everyone in this room has been told these are the same.”
I looked at Henderson.
“Would you like to verify that?”
Henderson nodded.
A perfume critic sitting near the stage volunteered to assist.
Within minutes, scent strips were passed through the audience.
The room filled with silence again as people tested the two compositions.
I watched their faces change.
The difference did not require a chemist.
The original was warm, layered, alive.
The synthetic version was flatter.
Sharper.
A copy without the soul of the original.
The critic looked at Julian.
“These are not the same formula.”
Elise whispered, “You don't understand the production requirements.”
“No,” I said. “You don't understand what you're selling.”
The screen changed once more.
The original formula appeared.
Then the substitute ingredients.
Then the laboratory purchase orders.
Everything connected.
Julian suddenly moved toward the projection booth.
“Turn that off.”
Nobody moved.
He shouted.
“Turn it off!”
Henri remained behind the controls.
Julian rushed toward the stage stairs.
Two security officers blocked him.
He stopped.
The officers had been hired by the gala organizers, not by him.
That distinction suddenly mattered.
Elise looked at the doors.
She seemed to be considering escape.
I saw it.
So did Henderson.
“Don't leave,” he said.
She stopped.
The ballroom doors opened.
Two investigators entered.
Marcel walked behind them.
Julian stared at him.
“You.”
Marcel adjusted his coat.
“Yes.”
The investigators approached the stage.
One presented identification.
“Mr. Julian Dubois?”
Julian didn't answer.
“Mrs. Elise Moreau?”
Elise's lips parted.
Neither spoke.
The investigator looked at me.
“Madame Dubois, are you prepared to provide the original files?”
“Yes.”
“And the ledger?”
“Yes.”
Julian finally found his voice.
“This is outrageous.”
Marcel stepped beside me.
“The prosecutor has already received copies.”
Julian looked at him with hatred.
“You planned this.”
“No,” Marcel replied. “They planned everything else.”
Elise's eyes filled with tears.
She looked at me.
“Clara.”
I waited.
“I never meant for you to die.”
The words were barely audible.
The room heard them anyway.
Julian turned toward her.
“Elise.”
She looked at him.
“You said it wouldn't kill her.”
I felt the entire room react.
Julian stared at her.
“What did you just say?”
Elise realized her mistake.
Her face collapsed.
I lowered my microphone.
The investigators stepped forward.
Julian reached for Elise.
She moved away from him.
For years I had imagined what it would feel like to see them exposed.
I had expected satisfaction.
There was none.
Only exhaustion.
The investigator placed restraints around Julian's wrists.
Elise began crying.
Julian looked at me.
“You'll destroy everything.”
I met his eyes.
“No.”
I looked at the Maison Dubois emblem above the stage.
“You already did.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: After the Arrest, the Board Wanted a New Owner, but I Had One Question They Were Not Prepared to Answer
When the Flames Died, My Husband Arrived With Papers That Were Supposed to End My Life’s Work
Part 5 of 12
