The Girl in the Tiara
Chapter 04 - The Girl in the Tiara
Vivienne’s phone had been cloned.
A forensic technician demonstrated how someone had copied its digital identity through the estate’s private network. The maintenance man admitted he had received cash and instructions but never saw the person who hired him.
Conrad used the uncertainty immediately.
“This proves an outsider is manipulating us,” he told the board. “The maid appears, the test appears, the sabotage begins.”
Clara sat at the long walnut table in a borrowed navy dress. She had served wine in this room dozens of times. Now directors addressed her as Ms. Reyes and avoided meeting her eyes.
Vivienne entered last.
She carried the tiara in its velvet case and placed it before Eleanor.
“I am not wearing this again until I know who I am.”
Conrad’s expression softened with practiced concern. “You are my daughter.”
“Then give Dr. Halden a sample.”
He hesitated only a second, but everyone saw it.
“I will not participate in a circus.”
Vivienne laughed bitterly. “You made my entire life a ceremony. Now you dislike the stage?”
Eleanor ordered an independent test using archived medical samples from Vivienne’s childhood. Results would take forty-eight hours.
Until then, the Vale family trust froze succession. That decision placed six billion dollars in voting control beyond Conrad’s reach.
Clara wanted none of it.
She asked Marcus whether she could leave the estate. He explained that she was free to go, but the trust’s security team believed she remained in danger.
“You are valuable now,” Conrad said across the table.
Clara looked at him. “I was valuable yesterday. You simply had no reason to notice.”
Vivienne’s mouth twitched despite herself.
After the meeting, the two young women walked through the winter garden. They were the same age, but nothing else about their lives appeared similar. Vivienne had attended boarding schools and state dinners. Clara had worked kitchens, cleaned hotel suites, and learned to stretch twenty dollars across a week.
“You hate me,” Vivienne said.
“I do not know you.”
“That may be worse.”
Vivienne stopped beside a frozen fountain. “I was cruel to you.”
“You asked me to polish your shoes while you were wearing them.”
“I thought it was funny.”
“It was memorable.”
To Clara’s surprise, Vivienne smiled sadly. “If we are sisters, you are allowed to use that against me until we are eighty.”
A shadow moved behind the greenhouse glass.
Clara turned.
May you like
Someone had written two words in the condensation:
ONLY ONE.
