Had Vanessa created the access records?
No.
Had Vanessa placed him and Livia in the executive lounge?
No.
Had Vanessa opened the restricted cabinet?
No.
Had Vanessa given Livia the bracelet?
Nathaniel paused.
Then he said it was irrelevant.
Margaret repeated the question.
Eventually, he answered yes.
The board secretary recorded it.
At 9:12 a.m., Livia was interviewed separately.
The confidence from her midnight messages did not survive contact with corporate counsel.
At first she insisted Nathaniel had told her she was allowed in the lounge whenever she was with him.
That answer did not help him.
Then she said he had told her the bracelet was his to give.
That did not help him either.
Finally, asked about the photographs, Livia admitted she had sent them to Vanessa herself.
She had been angry after months of listening to Nathaniel describe his wife as passive, boring, and incapable of challenging him.
She wanted Vanessa to know she had won.
The phrase landed badly in the interview room.
“Won what?” she was asked.
Livia had no useful answer.
She began blaming Nathaniel.
He had told her his marriage was effectively finished.
He had treated the executive lounge as personal territory.
He had laughed about rules applying differently to founders.
He had given her Vanessa’s bracelet as though it were proof that the old marriage no longer mattered.
Whether every private claim Nathaniel had made to Livia could be independently verified was beside the point.
What could be verified was enough.
The door opening.
The room.
The employee.
The photographs.
The undisclosed relationship.
The bracelet.
And Nathaniel’s own admissions that morning.
At 10:06, Nathaniel called Vanessa from his office.
“Tell Margaret this has gone far enough.”
Vanessa was standing beside the same kitchen island where the photographs had first arrived.
Daylight now filled the room.
“Why would she listen to me?”
“Because you started it.”
“No,” Vanessa said.
“Livia started it when she sent the pictures.
You started the part before that.
I preserved it.”
“Don’t play games with me.”
“I’m not playing anything.”
His breathing grew louder.
“You wanted to embarrass me.
Congratulations.
You’ve done it.
Now stop.”
Vanessa thought of every dinner where he had spoken over her.
