Chapter 7
Adelaide finally admitted there had been another document.
She had kept it because she did not trust why it was being presented.
It was called a Family Alignment Memorandum.
Lucille gave it to her at lunch ten days before the wedding.
“It looked harmless,” Adelaide said.
Genevieve read it.
Most of it was ceremonial language.
Shared values.
Mutual support.
Family cooperation after marriage.
Then Claire found paragraph eleven.
Adelaide’s signature would acknowledge that she “supported reasonable integration of legacy Bellomo assets with post-marital family enterprises where commercially appropriate.”
Not legally sufficient to approve the cross-guarantee.
But useful.
A lender could point to it as evidence that the decisive shareholder supported integration in principle.
Genevieve looked at her mother.
“You refused this too.”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
Adelaide tapped the page.
“Because people hide the dangerous sentence between nine boring ones.”
Claire smiled faintly.
“I like your mother.”
Genevieve looked at her.
“Get your own.”
Later that afternoon, Derek arrived at Bellomo headquarters despite instructions to communicate through counsel.
Security stopped him downstairs.
Genevieve came to the lobby.
He looked furious.
“You’re destroying my company.”
“Your financial statements are doing most of that.”
“You don’t understand what happens if Callahan falls.”
“Then explain it.”
“Hundreds of workers.”
“Then show me the books.”
“Families don’t operate this way.”
Genevieve stared at him.
“Healthy companies do.”
Derek stepped closer.
“We were supposed to combine strength.”
“We were supposed to get married.”
“You knew business came with me.”
“I knew you had a business.”
Genevieve’s voice hardened.
“I did not know you intended to put its debt on my mother’s signature.”
His face changed.
Then he said something unexpected.
“You think this started with me.”
Genevieve watched him.
“What does that mean?”
Derek looked toward the elevators.
“My mother has been planning this longer than I have.”
Genevieve’s expression did not change.
“Planning what?”
He laughed bitterly.
“Ask Lucille why she introduced us.”
Then he left.
Genevieve stood motionless.
She and Derek had met at a charitable hospital fundraiser eighteen months earlier.
Lucille had indeed arranged the introduction.
May you like
At the time, Genevieve thought it was ordinary matchmaking between powerful families.
Now, for the first time, she wondered what information Lucille had possessed before deciding her son should meet Genevieve Bellomo.
