When I was only minutes away from walking down the aisle in my wedding gown, the man I loved shattered our future with one sentence: he looked into my eyes and said, “I cannot marry you because my parents will not accept you as a daughter-in-law because they think that you are ‘too poor’ to be their daughter-in-law.” I gathered my dignity and walked away, but I will never forget how I felt at that moment.
At that time, it felt like time had stood still and the entire world had stopped turning. The chapel bells were ringing, and behind Adrian stood his mother, dressed in pearls and looking like a queen, and his father adjusting his cuffs with a bored expression on his face. It was quiet in the chapel, but there were two hundred people waiting for me to marry Adrian Vale.
Adrian couldn’t even look me in the eyes as he said that to me. “Clara, say something,” he said softly. I looked at him, the man I thought had promised to love me forever, and then at the parents who had shown me nothing but disdain.
Mrs. Vale stepped forward and said. “Please don’t be cruel. We’re going to pay for the dress.” The humiliation I felt at that point was greater than the feeling of betrayal that I experienced.I stitched my mother’s old lace to that gown.
Mr. Vale’s face wore a thin smile. “You are a child. With time you will heal, girls like you do.”
Girls like me.
Easily overlooked. Quiet. Grateful.
This is the only thing people see when they look at me.
I took a deep breath and calmed my trembling hands before putting on my best smile.
Adrian jumped back slightly.
“Thank you,” I said with calmness in my voice.
Mrs. Vale narrowed her eyes at me. “For what?”
“For informing me before I walked down the aisle.”
I turned around before they could see me crack.
Right outside the chapel doors, June, my maid of honour, was rushing towards me. “Clara! What’s going on?”
I kept heading towards the exit.
“Call a car,” I ordered.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
I was. Just in a place where no one could see it.
As we passed the chapel doors, a loud hush fell over the people sitting inside. Adrian’s cousins laughed at me. Adrian’s business associates were all watching me and somewhere behind me, a person was laughing.
Mrs. Vale’s words were like poison, as they followed me.
“Good girl, at least you know your place.”
I paused for a full second.
Then I marched on, head up high, the white silk gown trailing behind me on the red carpet like a flag of war.
Once inside the car, June squeezed my hand and said, “Tell me what you need me to do!”
I stared out the window as the chapel disappeared in the background.
In the bottom of my purse, under my lipstick and folded wedding vows, was a sealed envelope from the Securities Commission. Right beside it was a flash drive labelled Vale Holdings: Internal Transfers.Adrian was a very important person to me.
However, I also looked through his family’s finances.
They made the largest mistake of their lives.
The cancelled wedding had become public knowledge by sundown and the Vale family turned it to their advantage by midnight.
Mrs Vale released a statement saying that I had “misrepresented my background,” and that the family was “protecting Adrian from an unfortunate union.” Mr Vale assured shareholders that the wedding ended due to “personal differences” between Adrian and me, while Adrian made no public comment, which I believed was much more damaging than what the others had said.
The following morning my phone was bombarded with text messages.
Gold digger.
Trailer trash.
You should have known your place.
June wanted to get even for this.
I wanted coffee.
“Clara,” she said to me as she paced back and forth in my tiny apartment, “they are trying to destroy you.”
I sat at the small kitchen table with the diamond studs Adrian had given to me on some three months prior. They were indeed not real.
“Let them talk,” I said.
June came to a stop in front of me. “This will be your plan?”
“No,” I slowly opened my laptop, “but this will give me time to record their confessions.”
The Vales had never attempted to find out what type of accountant I worked as in the past. In their opinion, I was a lower-paid office assistant who dressed simply and took public transportation.
What they did not know was that I was a forensic accountant.
What they also did not know was that the Securities Commission had hired my agency to perform a discreet investigation into Vale Holdings, after three whistleblower complaints had mysteriously disappeared.
In addition, what they did not know is that Adrian had invited me into their homes, dinners, private conversations and to their most confidential opinions of him.They certainly did not know that I had in my possession Mount’s recordings of Mrs. Vale laughing at the “use of charity accounts to disguise moving dead money.”
Adrian called me at noon.
I answered via speaker phone.
“Clara,” he said in a subdued voice, “my mother really crossed the line.”
“Did she?”
“You know how she gets.”
“Yes.” I said. “Criminally irresponsible.”
There was silence.
Then, “What does that mean?”
I leaned back in my chair and said, “It means to stop talking to me.”
He took an audible ‘breath’ (a sharp inhale) followed by an extremely tight, “Are you threatening me?”
“No, Adrian. I love you, that was my weakness. Threats are for the amateurs, my friend.”
He hung up immediately afterward.
Good!
Fear makes arrogant people careless.
Two days later; I received an invitation from Mrs. Vale to come to the penthouse.
June had begged me not to go.
I was dressed in black.
The Penthouse towered over the city, was made of all marble, glass, and stolen wealth. Mrs. Vale sat beneath a chandelier that was large enough to feed an entire village for a year.
Adrian was standing beside the windows, very pale.
Mr. Vale poured a glass of whiskey for himself. “What’s your price?”