Chapter Two - Bought

Celeste

They put me in a small grey room and asked me the same questions in four different shapes.

Had I met Sebastian Huxley? No. Had I ever spoken with him.? No. Who had I been with at The Veil last night?

That was where I wanted to stopped talking, because the honest answer was I don’t know his name, and I’d learned by then how that sentence would look in a headline. But some part of me was past caring by now. So I just shrugged.

“I’ll ask you again. Who was with you in that video at The Veil last night?”

I sighed. “No idea.”

“You don’t know his name?”

The cocked eyebrow was the only sign that she didn’t quite believe me.

“No.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“No.”

Her pen stopped. I smiled without humour. Fuck it.

“Yes, Inspector. Women occasionally have anonymous sex too. It was an exciting year for feminism.”

The officer beside the door developed a sudden interest in the carpet. Shaw remained unimpressed.

“Is it Sebastian Huxley with you in the video?”

“I did not sleep with Sebastian Huxley.”

Detective Inspector Shaw wrote something in her notebook. I hated the notebook. There was something deeply offensive about being reduced to handwriting after half the internet had already seen me naked.

“Mr Huxley’s private membership credential was used to book the room you were in,” the detective said. She slid a photograph across the table. The silver-haired man again. “You’re telling me you never met this man?”

“I’m telling you I’ve never seen him before.”

“And yet a quarter of a million pounds of his money is sitting in your company account.”

I looked at the photo. I looked at her. “Then it’s an odd way to pay for a stranger.”

For one stupid second, I admired the efficiency of the setup. Sex scandal alone might have become yesterday’s gossip. Money made it prostitution. A dead married billionaire made it motive.

Someone had built the story properly.

They let me go before dawn. Not cleared. Released.

By the time I reached the car, the headlines had done the rest.

THE £250,000 ROMP

FROM BILLIONAIRE BRIDE TO BILLIONAIRE ESCORT?

DID HARTWELL SPEND HUXLEY’S FINAL NIGHT WITH HIM?

Escort. Mistress. Gold-digger. Blackmailer. The words scrolled past faster than I could hate them. The worst part wasn’t strangers believing I’d had sex for money. It was the fact that I’ve lost control of my own narrative.

Again.

This was the cruelty of it. My whole life, my face and my name and the way I moved through a room had been the one thing I understood how to control. Presentation was my native language. Even when Adrian fucked me over by ditching me at the altar for my sister.

Now someone had taken my fluency and used it to write my confession.

***

As if my day had not been long enough, Sienna and Adrian were waiting at my flat.

She reached me first. She walked straight over and hugged me. “You should have called me from the station.”

“So you could stand behind me looking capable while I looked ruined? No.”

I pulled back slightly, regretting my snark.

“I’m fine,” I said into her shoulder.

“You’re terrible at that sentence.”

“I’m excellent at it. People usually believe me.”

“I don’t.”

Adrian stayed by the window, in that watchful stillness he wears when he’s counting exits. “I have lawyers. Security. A house in Surrey no one can find. You can be gone by morning.”

“I’m sure I could.” I set down my bag. “I’m not going to be.”

Adrian’s expression barely moved. “You’ve been connected to a dead man.”

“And therefore the obvious solution is becoming a supporting character in your marriage?”

Sienna winced.

I immediately regretted that one. Not enough to take it back.

She touched my arm. “We’re trying to help.”

“I know.”

That made it harder.

Six months ago I might have fought her because fighting Sienna was familiar. Now I loved her again. I simply didn’t want her life swallowing mine.

“I need your support,” I said. “I don’t need rescuing.”

Sienna nodded. Adrian looked as though he had several objections and was choosing survival.

Progress.

“Look, I’ll take the lawyers. I’ll take the phone that can’t be traced. Even the security. But I’m not going to vanish into your spare wing and wait for the next thing to happen to me.” I looked at my sister. “I’ve been that woman. It’s not safer. It’s just quieter.”

Something crossed Sienna’s face. Not quite agreement. Closer to memory.

“Then tell us what you need,” she said.

“I need to see the account.”

The dormant one. Celeste Hartwell Consulting, a company I’d opened years ago to feel like I did something, and closed in my head long before I closed it on paper.

The money was real. Exactly £250,000, deposited nine hours before Huxley died.

I almost handed the laptop back. Then I saw the payment reference.

A string of letters and numbers. Meaningless, unless you’d seen it before.

I had.

It was part of the credential Anne’s people gave me last year. The access they told me was harmless. Read-only. A way to feel useful while the adults handled the real work. That was before I knew Anne’s whole setup wanted nothing more than to take my family company and use me like a pawn, even if my sister gets killed in the process.

My phone buzzed. Unknown number.

DO NOT RETURN THE MONEY.

I stared at it. It buzzed again.

DO NOT OPEN THE CREDENTIAL.

Across the room, Adrian said something I couldn’t hear. Because of course I opened the credential.

I’d spent a year being told which doors weren’t mine to open. I was done.

The old interface loaded, the one I’d been promised was dead. A slow green line crawled across the screen.

RECOVERY HOLDER VERIFIED.

“Celeste.” Sienna’s voice had changed. “What is that?”

I didn’t get to answer. Then, beneath it, a second line I did not understand and would come to hate: NODE ACTIVE.

“What the hell is a node?” I asked.

The laptop shut itself down. I pressed the power button.

Nothing.

Behind me, Adrian said, “Tell me you have a backup.”

I stared at the dead screen.

I did.

And I knew exactly where it was.