Chapter 10 - The Fall of the Prince
The forensic audit of the Florida project was completed in record time. By mid-January, the results were clear: Weston and Camille had systematically funneled over five million dollars from Callaway Holdings into private bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, using Camille’s brother’s shell company as a conduit.
The money had been intended to build a private estate in Palm Beach—a luxury home where Weston, Camille, and their son Arthur were planning to live once Weston had successfully divorced me and secured his position as the sole heir to the Callaway fortune.
They had been planning this for years.
On January 25th, the board of Callaway Holdings voted unanimously to terminate Weston’s employment with the company and to strip him of all his stock options. The corporate legal team, desperate to avoid a public scandal that would collapse their stock price, negotiated a quiet plea agreement with the state attorney’s office: Weston and Camille would return all the embezzled funds and sign a lifetime ban from working in any public company, in exchange for a suspended sentence and five years of supervised probation.
Their careers were over. Their names were ruined.
On the evening of February 1st, I sat in the parlor of the Savannah townhouse, holding Marlo, who was now three months old. She was smiling now, her face bright and full of life, her blue eyes reflecting the warm light of the fire.
There was a soft knock at the door.
Odette went to open it, and a moment later, she walked back into the living room, her face tight.
"Someone’s here to see you," she said.
I looked up.
Weston stood in the doorway. He was wearing a simple, un-tailored coat, his hair messy, his face thin and pale. The expensive watch was gone, replaced by a cheap plastic one. He looked like a man who had been stripped of everything that defined him.
"Sable," he whispered, his voice trembling. "Can I... can I please come in?"
I didn't answer. I simply watched him.
He stepped into the room, his eyes moving over the cozy parlor, then settling on me and Marlo.
"I’m sorry," he said, tears filling his eyes as he sank onto his knees on the rug before me. "I’m so sorry, Sable. I was stupid. I was greedy. I let my father and Camille get into my head. I thought I was protecting my future. But I lost the only thing that mattered."
He reached out a shaking hand, trying to touch Marlo’s tiny foot.
"Can I hold her?" he sobbed. "Please, Sable. Just once. Let me hold my daughter."
I looked down at Weston, the man who had held my hand through labor and then cast me aside. I felt no anger. I felt no hatred. I felt only a quiet, deep indifference.
"No, Weston," I said, my voice steady, carrying the absolute weight of a final contract. "You can't hold her."
"Please, Sable—"
"You made your choice in that hospital room," I said, looking down at my beautiful daughter. "You told me she was not an heir. You told me there were things at stake I didn't understand. And you laughed when I told you it was the last moment you would ever get from us."
I looked back at my husband.
"I’m just keeping the terms of our contract, Weston. And as you know, I always read the fine print."
I looked up at Odette. "Show him out, please."
May you like
Odette stepped forward, her face hard as stone. "Let’s go, Weston."
Weston stood up slowly, wiping his eyes. He looked at me, then at Marlo, realizing that the wall I had built around her was one he could never, ever climb. He turned and walked out of the house, his footsteps fading into the quiet Savannah night.
