Chapter 6
Bianca learned about Hale Event Management from her lawyer.
Not Gregory.
Her response was immediate.
She demanded to see the company records.
Gregory refused.
Then she demanded to see him.
His attorney advised against it.
Bianca called Sophia instead.
Sophia nearly declined.
Claire told her it was her choice.
She answered.
For several seconds neither woman spoke.
Then Bianca said:
“Did you know?”
“About what?”
“His company.”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Sophia closed her eyes.
There it was again.
Gregory had spent months making disbelief automatic.
“I knew some wedding invoices were wrong,” Sophia said. “That’s all.”
“You hated me.”
“I barely knew you.”
“That’s not what Gregory said.”
“I’m starting to understand that.”
Bianca began crying.
Not loudly.
Angrily.
“You still think you’re better than me.”
Sophia almost ended the call.
Instead she said:
“No. I think you cut my daughter’s dress and shoved me while I’m seven months pregnant.”
Silence.
“That is about you, Bianca. Not Gregory.”
The crying stopped.
Sophia continued.
“He may have lied to you. He did not put those scissors in your hand.”
Bianca hung up.
Raffaele, who had been sitting across the room with Sophia’s permission, said nothing.
Sophia looked at him.
“What?”
“That sounded like your mother.”
She softened for half a second.
Then looked away.
Her mother had died eight years earlier.
Raffaele rarely mentioned her because doing so still felt like opening a door he could not close.
The investigation produced another clue that evening.
Gregory had drafted a statement before the wedding.
A private memo to Hale Event Management’s lenders.
Not sent.
It explained that temporary payment irregularities were caused by “delayed approvals within the Carbone family office.”
Sophia was not named.
But her title was.
The memo said the delays reflected “personal disputes unrelated to Hale performance.”
Claire stared at it.
“He was building a business excuse around a family feud.”
Sophia looked at the date.
Four days before the wedding.
Before Bianca cut Emma’s dress.
Before Sophia was shoved.
Before Raffaele punched anyone.
Gregory had already prepared a narrative claiming personal conflict with Sophia caused his financial problems.
Then came one line near the bottom:
Expected resolution following marriage and integration of Hale operations into broader Carbone relationships.
Raffaele read it twice.
“I never agreed to integrate anything.”
Sophia shook her head.
“Neither did I.”
Yet Gregory was telling lenders otherwise.
Telling Bianca otherwise.
Maybe even telling himself otherwise.
May you like
The wedding had become more than a wedding.
It was the date on which Gregory expected his financial reality to change.
