Five minutes earlier he had struck me, threatened me with arrest, announced his mistress’s pregnancy in my face, and tried to force me to surrender my assets.
Now he had somehow decided that he was the betrayed person in the room.
“I told you my father was a mechanic,” I said.
“You never asked anything else.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.
It isn’t.”
Rebecca removed another document from the folder.
Julian saw the logo in the corner and immediately reached for it.
Sterling Capital.
Rebecca pulled it beyond his fingertips.
“Please don’t touch anything that belongs to Mrs.
Croft.”
Chloe stepped away from him.
Just half a step.
But Julian noticed.
“What is that document?” he demanded.
Rebecca looked at me.
I nodded.
She turned it around.
It was the record of a financing vehicle called Northstar Strategic Partners.
Julian knew that name very well.
Northstar had appeared during the worst period of Croft Holdings’ early history.
Julian’s company had been weeks from missing payroll when Northstar provided a bridge facility.
Two years later, when a major acquisition nearly collapsed, Northstar guaranteed part of the financing.
When banks began questioning Julian’s increasingly aggressive borrowing, Northstar’s continued participation persuaded them to stay.
Julian had spent years boasting about his ability to attract sophisticated capital.
He never knew that Northstar was controlled by Sterling Capital.
Or that its principal beneficiary was me.
His lips parted.
“No.”
Rebecca placed the ownership records beside the financing documents.
“Yes.”
Julian looked at me as though I had changed shape in front of him.
“You funded my company?”
“Not exactly.”
My ribs hurt when I breathed, but my voice remained steady.
“My father created a family investment account for me years before we met.
When your company was struggling, I asked the managers to review it.
They believed Croft Holdings had potential, so they invested.”
“You asked them?”
“Yes.”
His eyes widened with each answer.
I remembered the first time I had done it.
Julian and I had been married for only six months.
He had come home after midnight, sat at the kitchen island, and admitted that a lender was pulling out of a crucial transaction.
He had looked exhausted and frightened.
I loved him then.
I called my father the next morning.
Richard had warned me not to confuse love with rescue.
I told him I wasn’t rescuing Julian.
I was asking professional managers to examine a business opportunity.
“If they hate it, they say no,” I had insisted.
They did not hate it.
The investment worked.
Julian never asked where Northstar came from.
