Chapter 6 - The Fall of Vanessa
While the legal battle raged in Chicago, Vanessa Marlowe was finding out that Los Angeles was far less forgiving than Manhattan.
Sitting in a sunlit cafe on Sunset Boulevard, Vanessa slammed her oat milk latte onto the table. Across from her sat her long-time talent manager, Chloe.
"What do you mean the shoe campaign dropped me?!" Vanessa shrieked, ignoring the stares of patrons at nearby tables. "I signed the contract three weeks ago!"
"That was before your name appeared in three separate police reports in New York, Vanessa," Chloe said, not looking up from her iPad. "The brand’s legal team pulled the morality clause. You were arrested for wearing stolen property that belongs to your sister—a pregnant woman whose husband you were sleeping with."
"It was an misunderstanding!" Vanessa cried out. "Ethan told me the necklace was part of his mother’s estate! He lied to me!"
"Nobody cares about Ethan’s lies, Vanessa," Chloe said coldly. "The public cares about the narrative. And right now, the narrative is that you helped a corporate fraudster steal from his pregnant wife. Do you know who owns thirty percent of the agency representing you?"
Vanessa’s voice faltered. "Who?"
"The St. Claire Trust," Chloe said, finally looking up with a look of pure pity. "Claire Marlowe’s mother bought into our parent company ten years ago. An hour ago, our board received a notification from Zurich. Any agency representing you will lose its distribution license in Europe."
Vanessa went dead silent. "Claire... did this?"
"Claire didn't do anything," Chloe snapped, packing her tablet into her bag. "She didn't even have to pick up the phone. Her lawyers simply reminded our board of the conflict of interest. I'm dropping you as a client, Vanessa. Pay your tab on the way out."
Vanessa sat frozen as Chloe walked away. Her phone screen lit up on the table.
It was a text from Ethan.
I know you're in L.A. The police are coming to my hotel in Chicago. I need money, Vanessa. Send me fifty thousand or I tell the prosecutors you were an accomplice to the Vanguard transfers.
Vanessa’s breath hitched in terror. She threw her phone into her purse, stood up, and stumbled out into the blinding California sunlight. Her credit cards were declined at her hotel an hour later.
Desperate, with nowhere left to turn, Vanessa boarded a red-eye flight back to New York.
At six o'clock the following morning, wet from a sudden downpour, Vanessa stood outside the doorman’s desk at the 72nd Street apartment building.
"Please, Thomas," Vanessa wept, clutching her damp coat around her shoulders. "Tell her it’s her sister. Tell her I just need five minutes."
The doorman looked at her with an unblinking, stoic gaze. He picked up the house phone, dialed three digits, and spoke softly. After a moment, he put the receiver down.
"Mrs. Marlowe will see you," Thomas said. "Take the private elevator to the pent-house."
When the doors opened, Vanessa stepped into a vast, sun-filled living room overlooking Central Park.
Claire was sitting in an armchair by the floor-to-ceiling windows, wearing a comfortable cashmere cardigan over a white dress that clearly showed the curve of her twenty-week pregnancy. Sitting across from her was Arthur Vance, reviewing a stack of financial statements.
Vanessa collapsed onto her knees near the entrance, sobbing hysterically.
"Claire! Please, Claire, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!" Vanessa cried out, her voice echoing off the high ceilings. "Ethan manipulated me! He told me you didn't love him! He told me you were using him!"
Claire did not stand up. She slowly took a sip from her teacup, watching her younger sister on the floor.
"Get up, Vanessa," Claire said calmly.
"I have nothing left!" Vanessa sobbed, pulling herself up and staggering toward the sofa. "My agency dropped me! My accounts are frozen! Ethan is threatening to ruin me!"
"You had everything, Vanessa," Claire said, her voice dropping into a register of cold, absolute truth. "You had our mother’s memory. You had my support. You had a home. You threw all of it away because you couldn't stand living in my shadow."
"I was jealous!" Vanessa screamed, her face contorted with rage and shame. "You were always the brilliant one! Mother left the trust to you! She left the algorithm to you! What did she leave me? A diamond necklace!"
"She left you the necklace because she thought you had a heart that appreciated beauty," Claire said softly. "She gave me the trust because she knew I would have to protect you from your own stupidity. But I am finished protecting you."
Arthur Vance pulled a single sheet of paper from his briefcase and laid it on the coffee table.
"This is a formal agreement of severance from the St. Claire Trust," Arthur explained to Vanessa. "You will receive a monthly stipend of four thousand dollars—enough for a modest life in upstate New York—on one condition."
Vanessa wiped her nose with her sleeve, looking at the paper. "What condition?"
"You sign a permanent injunction," Claire said. "You will never speak my name, my children's names, or the Marlowe name to any media outlet. You will move out of the city. And if you ever approach my children, the stipend terminates immediately, and the police report regarding the theft at the Halston Hotel will be pursued to its maximum felony charge."
Vanessa looked at the pen sitting beside the paper. She looked at her sister’s calm, unshakeable face.
"You hate me," Vanessa whispered.
May you like
"No, Vanessa," Claire said, turning her head back toward the rain falling over Central Park. "I don't hate you. That would require me to spend energy thinking about you. Sign the paper and leave."
With trembling fingers, Vanessa signed her name, dropped the pen, and walked out of the apartment, her heels clicking softly against the marble until the elevator doors closed behind her forever.
