Chapter 14 - DIANE'S SECRET
Diane denied it for eleven minutes.
Then I showed her the internal file.
R. PRICE.
She sat in my living room with a lawyer beside her.
Grant was still in custody.
Ryan had stopped answering everyone.
Brooke stood near the windows.
“Mom.”
Diane closed her eyes.
“Tell us.”
Diane began crying.
Not elegantly.
Not strategically.
For once, she looked genuinely shattered.
“Ryan was born before Grant and I married.”
Brooke stared at her.
“What?”
“I was twenty-two.”
“Who is his father?”
Diane looked at me.
I already knew.
“Marcus?”
She shook her head.
Then whispered, “Evelyn's father.”
The room went silent.
Evelyn's father, Charles Price, had been a wealthy investment executive.
He died twelve years earlier.
Diane had worked as his assistant.
They had an affair.
Ryan was born.
Grant married Diane six months later.
“Did Grant know?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he agree?”
Diane stared at her hands.
“Charles paid him.”
Brooke looked physically ill.
“My whole family is built on money.”
Diane flinched.
I asked the question that mattered.
“Did Evelyn know Ryan was her half brother?”
“Yes.”
Everything rearranged itself.
Evelyn had not merely hired Ryan.
She had used her own half brother.
Diane continued.
“After Charles died, Evelyn learned the truth.”
“She hated me.”
“She hated Grant.”
“But she was interested in Ryan.”
“Interested how?”
“She said he deserved something from the Price family.”
“What?”
“A future.”
I understood.
“She recruited him.”
Diane nodded.
“She told him wealthy families protected their own and that Grant had wasted every opportunity Charles gave us.”
Ryan had spent his adulthood desperate to prove himself to a family that barely acknowledged him.
Evelyn had exploited that hunger.
It did not excuse him.
But it explained the leash.
Brooke sat beside her mother.
“Did you know about Claire?”
Diane looked toward me.
“I knew Ryan had met you through Evelyn.”
“Did you know why?”
Her silence answered.
Brooke stood.
“You knew?”
“I didn't know everything.”
“You knew enough.”
Diane began defending herself.
I stopped listening.
A deeper question had formed.
If Evelyn's father financed Grant before Evelyn took over the network, then maybe Evelyn hadn't created it.
Maybe she inherited it.
Daniel apparently reached the same conclusion.
“Diane.”
She looked at him.
“How long did Charles Price know Grant?”
“Years.”
“How many?”
“Since before I met either of them.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Was Grant involved in finding wealthy women for Charles?”
Diane's face drained.
Mara whispered, “There it is.”
I looked at Diane.
“This started with Charles.”
She shook her head quickly.
“No.”
“Then who?”
Diane stared toward the floor.
May you like
When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible.
“Charles worked for someone else.”
