Chapter 3 - The Gathering Storm
Vanessa let out a harsh, bitter laugh, though her knuckles turned white as she clutched her designer purse. "Who do you think Adrienne will believe, Grace? A poor, pathetic housemaid who lives in his servant quarters, or his fiancée?"
"He'll believe the truth," Grace spat, tenderly dabbing a cool cloth across Eleanor's severe burns.
"We'll see about that," Vanessa replied, turning on her high heels and storming out of the room, her heels clicking frantically down the corridor.
The moment the door slammed shut, Grace turned her full attention to the elderly woman. Eleanor was shaking from shock, her breathing shallow. Grace quickly pulled back the ruined bedding, stripped away the scalding nightgown, and applied soothing burn cream from the medical kit, wrapping the tender skin in sterile gauze.
"Should I call an ambulance, Mrs. Cross?" Grace asked, tears blurring her vision.
"No... no emergency rooms," Eleanor gasped out, holding Grace's wrist tightly. "Call Adrienne. Tell him... tell him he needs to come home right now. But don't tell him why over the phone. Just tell him it's about the house."
Grace nodded quickly. She pulled out her phone and dialed Adrienne’s direct office line.
Meanwhile, downstairs in the driveway, Vanessa was pacing back and forth beside her sports car, her mind racing. She knew she had gone too far. If Eleanor managed to convince Adrienne of what happened before she could spin the narrative, the wedding—and the fortune—would vanish in an instant.
She pulled out her phone and called Adrienne first.
"Adrienne!" Vanessa cried into the receiver, squeezing out real tears on command, her voice trembling with manufactured distress. "Oh my god, Adrienne, you have to come home right away!"
At the corporate headquarters of Cross Technologies in midtown Manhattan, thirty-two-year-old Adrienne Cross sat at the head of a massive mahogany glass table, presiding over a board meeting with twenty international investors.
He frowned, leaning back in his executive chair. "Vanessa? What's wrong? I'm in the middle of a board review."
"It's your mother!" Vanessa sobbed dramatically into the phone. "She had an episode! She got so angry at me because I tried to help her with her breakfast... she threw her hot soup all over herself and tried to blame me! She's out of control, Adrienne! Grace is covering for her, and they're threatening to tell you terrible lies about me!"
Adrienne stood up from his chair so fast his leather seat rolled back into the glass window. The room of executives fell dead silent.
"What did you say?" Adrienne’s voice dropped to a low, dangerous murmur.
"She threw the soup, Adrienne! She's trying to ruin our wedding because she hates me! Please, you need to come home right now and handle this!"
Adrienne closed his eyes, a deep headache thumping behind his temples. "I'm leaving the office now."
He hung up the phone, tossed his suit jacket over his shoulder, and looked at his chief operating officer. "Cancel the rest of the afternoon meetings. I have an emergency at home."
As Adrienne sped his sports car down the Interstate toward Greenwich, his mind was a storm of conflicting emotions. He loved his mother deeply—she was the woman who had worked two jobs to buy his first computer, who had sacrificed her own health so he could attend MIT. But over the past few months, she had been distant, cold toward Vanessa, and resistant to every attempt at family unity.
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Could his mother really be doing this out of spite? Or was Vanessa hiding something from him?
He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, determined to uncover the truth the moment he stepped through those front gates.
