Chapter 4 - CAMILLE WEXLER WAS NOT THE WOMAN VIVIAN THOUGHT SHE WASCamille called me herself.
I almost didn’t answer.
Then did.
“Ava?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Camille.”
“I know.”
A pause.
“How is Lily?”
“Safe.”
“I heard enough to know what happened.”
“From your father?”
“From three reporters first.”
Of course.
Somebody leaked the emergency order.
Camille sounded furious.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do it.”
“I know.”
Good.
No inherited guilt.
Then she said:
“My father told me about you.”
I sat down.
“When?”
“Last night.”
“So you didn’t know?”
“No.”
That mattered.
Vivian had been invoking Camille’s name for years as though she were part of some grand plan.
She wasn’t.
Camille continued:
“I knew our families wanted Owen and me to date.”
“Did you?”
“Once.”
I blinked.
“When?”
“College.”
“Seriously?”
“Three dinners.”
I almost laughed.
“What happened?”
“He talked about supply chains for forty minutes.”
That sounded like Owen.
“I’m sorry.”
“He apologized too.”
Then she became serious.
“I told both families I wasn’t interested.”
“Vivian kept saying—”
“I know what Vivian kept saying.”
Her voice hardened.
“She kept telling people I was waiting for Owen.”
“You weren’t.”
“No.”
“Did you know about the Harbor Point marriage understanding?”
“Only that our grandfathers had some ridiculous fantasy about merging family interests through future generations.”
“Nothing formal?”
“No.”
Then:
“And if I had known you were my sister, I would have wanted to know.”
Her voice broke slightly.
That caught me off guard.
Not:
I would have protected the family.
Not:
This is a scandal.
“I would have wanted to know you.”
I did not know what to say.
Camille continued:
“I’m not asking you for anything.”
“Okay.”
“But I’m not going to let my father’s office turn you into a threat.”
That became important.
Because by afternoon, the mayor’s communications team prepared a statement describing the old relationship as:
a private personal matter conclusively resolved decades ago.
Camille objected.
So did I.
The phrase erased my mother.
Erased me.
And suggested the only problem was privacy.
Franklin withdrew it.
Good.
Then Camille told me something else.
“Vivian contacted me three weeks ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did she say?”
“She asked whether I would consider joining the Lancaster Foundation board.”
“That’s not unusual.”
“She also asked if I’d ever reconsidered Owen.”
I closed my eyes.
“What did you say?”
“That he has a wife and child.”
“And?”
“She said marriages end.”
I felt cold.
Camille continued:
“I told her never to contact me about him again.”
There.
Vivian was not simply holding onto an old family fantasy.
She was actively imagining my removal.
Then:
“She said something else.”
“What?”
“That the Harbor Point matter would soon be ‘clean again.’”
My body went still.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Before the trash-bin incident.
Before the public crisis.
Vivian already expected something to change.
“What did you think she meant?”
“I thought she meant the audit.”
“How did you know about the audit?”
“My father mentioned a legacy accounting review.”
So Franklin knew.
Camille said:
“Ava, I think Vivian believed she could terminate your branch’s rights.”
“She can’t.”
“I know that now.”
“Why would she think she could?”
“That’s what we need to find out.”
For the first time, my half-sister and I were on the same side of something.
May you like
Not because blood automatically creates loyalty.
Because we both wanted the truth.
