The marriage he doesn't remember

Chapter five

CHAPTER FIVE — R. Halloway

Elena waited until Camille disappeared upstairs before pulling out her phone and searching the only name she had.

Rebecca Halloway.

The search returned a law firm's staff page: Halloway & Vance, Attorneys at Law, specializing in corporate litigation and estate disputes. Elena's hands shook slightly as she dialed.

"Halloway and Vance."

"I need to speak with Rebecca Halloway. Tell her it's Elena Voss."

A long pause, then the receptionist's voice, careful. "One moment, please."

The hold music clicked off, replaced by a voice sharp with disbelief.

"Elena? My God. I heard about the accident, I tried calling the house a dozen times, they told me you weren't taking calls—"

"I don't remember you," Elena said, cutting through before the relief could build into something she didn't have time for. "I found your email. You said I was underestimating what he's capable of. What did you mean?"

"Elena, I can't do this over the phone," Rebecca said, voice dropping low. "Are you alone right now?"

"For now. Not for long."

"Listen carefully." Rebecca's tone shifted into something clipped and urgent. "Six weeks ago, you came to my office asking me to draft an emergency provision — a clause meant to protect your sister's business from being absorbed by Cross Holdings. Marissa owes money, more than she's told you, and Damian's father offered to buy the debt. You believed — correctly — that once Cross Holdings owned that debt, they'd use it as leverage. Against you. Against her."

Elena's stomach turned to ice. "So I married Damian to stop that."

"You married Damian because he told you it was the only way to keep his father from destroying your sister's company, and because—" Rebecca hesitated. "Because I think you actually started to fall for him too. That's what worried me most. You stopped being careful."

"What's Section 4? There's a page torn from the prenup. It mentions conditions, something reverting if I don't meet them."

Rebecca's breath caught. "That page wasn't supposed to exist in your copy at all. If Damian's family finds out you've seen it—"

The call cut off.

Not gently. A hard, immediate silence, as if someone had pressed a button and ended it from the other end.

Elena stared at the phone, pulse roaring, and slowly became aware of a presence in the doorway. Camille stood there, phone in her own hand, expression deliberately blank.

"Who were you talking to?"

Elena set her phone down slowly, buying a moment to steady her voice. "You cut the call. That was you."

Something in Camille's expression flickered — not denial, but resignation.

"There's a signal jammer installed for the west wing," Camille admitted. "My father insisted on it years ago. It affects most of the ground floor when active. I didn't cut your call, Elena. The house did."

"That's convenient."

"It's true," Camille said, without offense. "I've stopped expecting people in this family to believe true things over convenient lies."

Elena studied her, trying to parse the layers beneath Camille's composure — gatekeeper, reluctant ally, or something more calculating still.

"Rebecca said there are things you deserve to know," Elena said. "Things she said you're not supposed to tell me."

Camille was quiet a long moment, her fingers tightening around her mug, visibly torn between loyalty to her brother and something that looked almost like guilt.

"Not here," she said finally. "Not with him due home soon. Give me until tomorrow. I'll tell you what I can."

It wasn't the answer Elena wanted. But it was more honesty than this house had offered her in six days, and for now, exhausted, she decided it would have to be enough.

She spent the rest of the afternoon alone in the garden, turning the pieces over in her mind. A prenup with a torn page. A sister's warning. A lawyer cut off mid-sentence. A jammer that conveniently silenced the one call that might have told her the truth. Every answer only produced two more questions, and she was beginning to suspect that was by design.

Greta found her there as the light started to fade, carrying a tray with tea Elena hadn't asked for.

"You looked like you could use this, ma'am," Greta said, setting the tray down with a gentleness that felt, for once, less like performance and more like genuine concern.

"Did you know me? Before the accident, I mean."

Greta hesitated, glancing back toward the house. "You came around more than the family let on, ma'am. Quietly. You and Mr. Cross had an understanding long before the wedding papers made it official."

"An understanding," Elena repeated slowly. "What kind?"

But Greta's expression had already closed. "It's not my place, ma'am. I've said more than I should." She excused herself quickly, leaving the question untouched.

Elena sat alone in the gathering dusk, turning that phrase over and over. An understanding long before the wedding papers made it official.

Whatever she and Damian had been to each other before that hospital bed, it apparently hadn't started with a rushed, six-day courtship. Something had existed underneath it — something older, something the household seemed determined to keep out of reach until Damian decided she was ready.

By the time she made her way back inside, the house had gone quiet, and Elena found herself standing once more at the top of the staircase, staring down the dim hallway toward that locked door, wondering how many more pieces of herself were waiting behind it.