Chapter 7 - Why Evelyn Chose Me
My relationship with Christian began at a charity gala in Chicago.
He spilled sparkling water on my dress.
Apologized.
Made me laugh.
Asked for my number.
For five years, I had considered it one of those stupidly cinematic stories people secretly love telling.
It had been arranged.
Gabriel confirmed it.
Not by Christian.
By Evelyn.
His mother had been searching for me.
“Why?”
Gabriel claimed he didn't know.
Sabrina did.
She sent documents from Christian’s safe.
My maternal grandmother:
Eleanor Hart.
Former chairwoman of Hartwell Music Publishing.
My grandmother had died when I was fourteen.
Mom always told me the company was sold after her death.
Not exactly.
Hartwell controlled publishing rights to thousands of songs from the 1970s through early 2000s.
A trust still existed.
I was its contingent beneficiary.
Value?
Potentially hundreds of millions.
I stopped breathing.
My mother died when I was twenty.
She never told me.
Maybe she didn't know.
Or maybe she'd chosen not to.
Christian’s early catalog contained twelve songs whose underlying rights belonged partly to Hartwell.
Evelyn knew.
She introduced Christian to me because marriage could eventually bring influence over those rights.
My romance began as a business strategy.
Again, that didn't mean Christian never loved me.
It meant the first door was opened for a reason I never knew.
A pattern I had started recognizing.
Manufactured meeting.
Real years.
Hidden purpose.
Personal choices.
No single truth erased another.
Then Gabriel found the crucial clause.
The Hartwell trust fully vested when I turned thirty-one.
My birthday was eleven days after the wedding.
One week after the planned ceremony.
Now the timing became hideous.
If I married Christian first, certain spousal rights could be triggered around trust management under an old family agreement.
Not automatic ownership.
But enough legal standing to create litigation.
If I became incapacitated?
More.
If I died?
Leo—or whoever legally qualified as Christian’s child—might become relevant through another convoluted inheritance branch.
Suddenly fertility mattered.
My miscarriages mattered.
Leo mattered.
Sabrina’s identity mattered.
This wasn't only Christian wanting two women.
It was a family trying to engineer succession.
I called my estate lawyer.
She found something immediately.
A petition had already been prepared to recognize Christian as my emergency financial representative after the attack.
Not filed.
Yet.
Supporting declaration:
Evelyn Prescott.
Medical opinion:
Dr. Lawson.
Again Lawson.
Then my lawyer said:
“Genevieve, there's something strange.”
“What?”
“Someone already challenged Christian’s appointment.”
“Who?”
“An attorney representing the Hartwell trust.”
“Name?”
“Margaret Cole.”
The missing woman.
Margaret wasn't another patient.
She was trying to stop them.
And suddenly I understood why Sabrina had found her name inside medical records.
May you like
Someone had deliberately labeled a lawyer as a fertility patient.
They were manufacturing evidence that Margaret was unstable too.
