The name Caroline gave me was my older cousin, Rebecca.
For several seconds, I could not connect the woman I knew with the words Caroline had just spoken. Rebecca had been part of my childhood. She had sat beside me at family dinners, borrowed my clothes, held my hand at my grandmother's funeral, and once spent an entire summer helping me repaint the little cottage that later became part of my separate property.
She was not a stranger.
She was family.
“Are you certain?” I asked.
Caroline's voice remained careful. “The investor identified her as the person who first discussed your family's resources with him.”
I sat at the kitchen table while my father stood across from me.
He had heard only my side of the conversation.
“Rebecca?” he asked.
I nodded.
His expression changed, but he did not look surprised.
That frightened me more than anything.
“You knew?”
“I suspected she had spoken to Dominic.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know what she had said.”
I stared at him.
He pulled out a chair and sat down.
“Rebecca came to me last year,” he said. “She asked questions about the family trust.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Whether you could access it. Whether your marriage changed your rights. Whether Dominic had any claim.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“Why would she ask?”
“I didn't know.”
I thought about the email from Dominic.
Once Audrey is in a position to approve the structure, we can close the remaining gap.
A year ago, Rebecca had already been asking about my assets.
The timing was too precise to ignore.
Caroline listened while I explained.
“Don't confront her yet,” she said.
“I need to know why.”
“You will. But let the investor speak first.”
The meeting was arranged for the next afternoon.
The investor, Martin Cole, arrived at Caroline's office carrying a thin leather folder.
He looked uncomfortable.
“I owe you an apology,” he said before sitting down.
I studied him.
“For what?”
“For believing Dominic.”
I did not answer.
Martin opened the folder.
“I met him through a business association. He introduced himself as someone whose family had substantial resources behind him.”
“That wasn't true.”
“Not in the way I understood it.”
He removed a printed email.
“This came from Rebecca.”
I read it.
The message was polite.
It said my family had enough resources to support Dominic's expansion if necessary.
It never claimed she had authority.
It never said she had spoken for me.
But it created the impression that she knew my financial position intimately.
I looked at Martin.
“Why would you believe her?”
“She said she was your cousin.”
I felt a bitter laugh rise and disappear.
“Apparently that was enough.”
Martin nodded.
“She told me you were cautious and private, but that you would eventually support the company.”
The same assumption.
The same story.
Different messenger.
Caroline asked, “Did Rebecca ever provide documents?”
“No.”
“Did she introduce Dominic to you?”
“Yes.”
My head lifted.
“When?”
“Several months before the financing agreement.”
That meant Rebecca had not merely answered questions.
She had helped establish credibility.
Martin continued.
“She told me Dominic had access to family support through his marriage.”
My hands tightened.
“Did Dominic know she was saying this?”
Martin looked at Caroline.
Then at me.
“Yes.”
There it was.
The connection.
Rebecca had opened the door.
Dominic had walked through it.
Victoria had helped keep the money moving.
Daniel had prepared the document.
And I had been the person whose name made the whole arrangement look legitimate.
Martin slid another document across the table.
“This is the part I should have told you sooner.”
It was an email from Dominic to Martin.
The message said Rebecca understood Audrey's position and that there would be no problem once the family situation was handled.
I read it twice.
“What did he mean by family situation?”
Martin shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Caroline asked him when he had received the email.
“Three months before the financing.”
I looked at the date.
It was shortly after Dominic had first begun pressuring me to sell my grandmother's cottage.
The memory came back sharply.
He had stood in our kitchen with a property listing open on his phone.
“We don't need sentimental real estate.”
I had laughed.
“It isn't sentimental. It's mine.”
He had smiled.
“Everything can be useful.”
At the time, I thought he meant financially.
Now I understood the sentence differently.
Martin gathered the papers.
“I am willing to provide everything I have.”
“Why?”
He looked embarrassed.
“Because I realize now that I should have questioned the story.”
“You were trying to invest.”
“Yes.”
“And Dominic gave you reasons to believe him.”
“Yes.”
I nodded.
“I don't blame you for being deceived.”
He looked relieved.
“But I need the truth now.”
“You'll have it.”
After he left, I remained in the office.
Caroline closed the door.
“You're thinking about Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“She may have been trying to help Dominic. She may have believed he could repay the money. She may have misunderstood the legal implications.”
“Or she may have known exactly what she was doing.”
Caroline nodded.
“That's why we keep investigating.”
My father drove me home.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Finally I asked, “Do you think she betrayed me?”
He kept his eyes on the road.
“I think she made choices that put your interests behind someone else's.”
“That sounds like betrayal.”
“It may be.”
When we reached the townhouse, Rebecca was waiting outside.
I stopped.
My father looked at me.
“I can stay.”
“No.”
“You don't have to speak with her.”
“I know.”
I stepped out of the car.
Rebecca looked nervous.
Her arms were folded tightly across her chest.
“I didn't know you were coming,” she said.
“I didn't know you were coming either.”
She glanced at my father.
“I need to explain.”
“Then explain.”
She swallowed.
“I thought Dominic was going to make everything work.”
“What everything?”
“The company.”
“And what did you think I was supposed to do?”
“Help.”
“You told investors I would.”
“I thought you would.”
“You didn't ask me.”
“I knew you wouldn't understand.”
The sentence landed hard.
“Why?”
“Because you never believed in Dominic's business.”
“No,” I said. “I believed in him as my husband.”
Rebecca looked away.
“That isn't the same thing.”
“Apparently not.”
She wiped her eyes.
“Dominic told me the company was days from collapsing.”
“When?”
“Months ago.”
“And he asked you to help?”
“He asked me to explain the family situation.”
“What family situation?”
She hesitated.
“He said your father had resources.”
My voice became colder.
“And you gave him information.”
“I gave him what I knew.”
“You told an investor I would support him.”
“I thought you would.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I was wrong.”
I stared at her.
“What else did you do?”
She began to cry.
“I gave Dominic a copy of an old financial summary you had shown me years ago.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“It didn't contain account numbers.”
“That isn't the point.”
“I didn't think—”
“You never asked me.”
“No.”
“Did you know he was using it to obtain financing?”
Rebecca's silence answered.
I felt something inside me close.
Not explode.
Close.
The kind of closure that came when there was nothing left to misunderstand.
“Why?”
She looked at me.
“Because he told me if the company failed, your marriage would fail too.”
I almost laughed.
“So you helped him save the marriage by helping him deceive me.”
Rebecca covered her face.
“I thought I was helping.”
“You helped him build a future that required my permission without ever asking for it.”
She lowered her hands.
“I am sorry.”
I believed that she was sorry.
But apology could not undo a decision.
“I hope you tell the truth,” I said.
“I will.”
“Then start now.”
Rebecca nodded.
She agreed to provide everything she had.
Messages.
Emails.
Notes.
Anything Dominic had sent her.
Before she left, she turned back.
“There is one thing you don't know.”
I waited.
“Dominic wasn't trying to save the company.”
My pulse quickened.
“What was he trying to do?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“He was trying to buy the building next to your grandmother's property.”
I felt the room tilt.
The cottage.
My separate property.
The one thing Dominic had repeatedly called useless.
Rebecca continued.
“He said once he owned both properties, the development would be worth several times what he paid.”
I understood then.
The company.
The investors.
My assets.
The financing.
It had all been leading somewhere.
Not toward our family.
Toward property Dominic believed he could control.
And the property he wanted most had always been mine.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: The Property Dominic Called Worthless Was the Missing Piece in the Plan He Had Been Building Around Me
Five Days After Surgery, I Learned Exactly How Little My Husband Thought My Pain Was Worth
Part 9 of 12
