Chapter 39 Chapter thirty nine

Chapter 39 Chapter thirty nine
DEV

The depositions were scheduled for Monday morning. Crown Estate's lawyers had booked a conference room at a law firm in the City. Eight hours blocked out for questioning.

Sarah prepared us over the weekend. Potential questions. How to answer. What to avoid saying. How to handle aggressive questioning designed to provoke emotional responses.

"They are going to try to make you angry," Sarah warned me. "They will bring up your father's death. Suggest you have been obsessed with revenge for ten years. Imply that your research is emotionally driven rather than objective. Do not take the bait. Answer factually. Stay calm."

"And for me?" Aanya asked.

"They will try to paint you as naive and easily influenced. They will ask detailed questions about when you first felt attracted to Dev. Whether he discussed his research with you before the forum. Whether he influenced what you said. They will try to make it sound like you were romantically compromised from the beginning."

"What if they ask about..." Aanya glanced at me. "About our relationship now. About whether we are physically involved."

"They absolutely will ask. And you answer honestly. Yes, you are in a relationship. Yes, it is serious. Yes, you are physically intimate. But the timeline matters. You did not start dating until after the forum. You were not romantically involved when you made your statements. That is the key fact."

Monday morning arrived too quickly.

We met Sarah at the law firm at eight thirty. Crown Estate's legal team was already there. Three lawyers, all of them looking polished and expensive and ready for battle.

The lead lawyer, a woman in her fifties named Margaret Hartwell, smiled at us. It was not a friendly smile.

"Ms. Windsor. Dr. Marchetti. Shall we begin?"



AANYA

They started with me.

Margaret Hartwell was polite, professional, and relentless.

"Ms. Windsor, when did you first become aware of Dr. Marchetti's research?"

"After the gala. I found a Tube ticket in the waistcoat pocket and researched who had helped me. I discovered he had published research on Crown Estate practices."

"And you kept the waistcoat. Why?"

"It was the first genuine kindness I had experienced in a long time. I wanted to remember it."

"Would you characterize keeping a strange man's clothing as normal behavior?"

Sarah intervened. "Objection. Argumentative."

"I will rephrase. Ms. Windsor, did you find Dr. Marchetti attractive when you first met him?"

My face felt hot. "I noticed him, yes."

"You noticed him. Would you say you were attracted to him?"

"I thought he was handsome. But I was more interested in what he represented. Genuine action instead of performance."

"But you were attracted to him physically."

"Yes."

"And after discovering his research, did you contact him?"

"No."

"Did you attempt to reach him before the forum?"

"No."

"But you did research his background. His father's death. His dissertation topic. You learned details about his life."

"I researched Crown Estate news and found his publications. His background was part of understanding the context of his research."

"Or part of developing a romantic interest."

"I was interested in his work, not in pursuing him romantically."

"Yet you kept his waistcoat. You researched his background. You attended the forum specifically to hear him present. And you made public statements validating research you had no professional basis to assess. Does that sound like objective interest in urban development policy or does it sound like personal interest in Dr. Marchetti?"

"It sounds like someone trying to understand whether institutional harm was occurring."

"Someone with no background in environmental policy, housing law, or urban development. Someone whose only source of information was research conducted by a man whose father died in a Crown Estate accident and who might have personal motivations for portraying Crown Estate negatively."

Sarah objected again. I was starting to see how this would go. Hours of questions designed to paint me as naive and romantically compromised.

"Ms. Windsor, when did you first develop romantic feelings for Dr. Marchetti?"

"I am not sure. It developed gradually."

"But you were attracted to him from the first meeting."

"I thought he was handsome. That is different from romantic feelings."

"When did it become romantic?"

"After the forum. When we actually spoke for more than thirty seconds."

"So the forum was the catalyst for your romantic relationship."

"The forum was when we first had a real conversation."

"And during that conversation, did Dr. Marchetti express gratitude that you had validated his research?"

"He was surprised. We both were."

"Gratitude can be powerful. Did his gratitude influence your growing attraction?"

"No."

"You are certain."

"I am certain that what I feel for Dev is based on who he is as a person, not on gratitude for political support."

"Dev. You call him Dev now. Not Dr. Marchetti. When did that familiarity develop?"

"After we started dating."

"Which was when, exactly?"

"Two days after the forum."

"Two days. That seems very fast."

"We had both just made life-altering choices. The circumstances were unusual."

"Would you say the circumstances made you emotionally vulnerable?"

"We were both vulnerable, yes."

"And Dr. Marchetti provided support during that vulnerability."

"We supported each other."

"But he had more knowledge. More expertise. More understanding of the situation. You were dependent on him to explain what was happening."

"I was not dependent on him. I did my own research."

"Research based on his methodology and his conclusions."

"Research based on Crown Estate's own documents."

"Documents he directed you to."

"Documents that are public record."

"Ms. Windsor, is it possible that your romantic feelings for Dr. Marchetti influenced your willingness to accept his interpretation of those documents?"

I wanted to scream that no, my feelings had not influenced my judgment, that I had looked at the evidence and reached my own conclusions, that Crown Estate was engaging in exactly the kind of deflection I had seen for years in palace briefings.

But Sarah had warned me. Stay calm. Answer factually. Do not get emotional.

"No," I said. "My romantic feelings developed after I had already reviewed the evidence and reached my own conclusions. The timeline does not support the interpretation you are suggesting."

"We will see what the timeline actually shows, Ms. Windsor."

Four more hours of questions. About my relationship with Dev. About when we first kissed, when we became physically intimate, whether he had influenced my thinking, whether I understood the implications of my statements, whether I had any professional basis for assessing institutional wrongdoing.

By the time they finished with me, I felt like I had been filleted.

Then they started on Dev.


DEV

Margaret Hartwell's smile when she turned to me was even less friendly than the one she had given Aanya.

"Dr. Marchetti. Let us talk about your father."

And there it was.

"Lorenzo Marchetti died in a construction accident on October 15, 2015. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"He was employed by an independent contractor, Smithson Construction, not directly by Crown Estate."

"He was working on a Crown Estate development project."

"But employed by the contractor, not by Crown Estate."

"Crown Estate hired the contractor. Crown Estate set the timeline and budget. Crown Estate was responsible for ensuring proper safety standards."

"The Health and Safety Executive investigation found that Smithson Construction was responsible for the safety violations that led to your father's death. Is that correct?"

"The HSE investigation was incomplete. It did not examine Crown Estate's role in creating the conditions that led to contractor negligence."

"You disagree with the HSE findings."

"I believe the HSE investigation focused on the immediate cause and ignored the systemic factors."

"Systemic factors you have spent ten years researching."

"Yes."

"Would you say you have a personal investment in proving Crown Estate was responsible for your father's death?"

"I have an investment in understanding institutional factors that contribute to workplace accidents. My father's death was the catalyst for that research, yes. But the research stands on its own merits."

"Does it? Or is it fundamentally shaped by your need to find someone to blame for your father's death?"

Sarah objected. I forced myself to stay calm.

"My research has been peer-reviewed and published. Multiple experts have validated the methodology. The findings are supported by data from hundreds of Crown Estate projects over fifteen years. This is not revenge. This is scholarship."

"Scholarship motivated by personal tragedy."

"Scholarship informed by personal experience. There is a difference."

"Is there? Let us talk about your relationship with Ms. Windsor. When did you first meet her?"

"At the Buckingham Palace gala. She fell when someone stepped on her gown. I caught her."

"And you wrapped your waistcoat around her waist."

"Yes."

"That is an intimate gesture. Were you attracted to her?"

"I noticed she was beautiful, yes. But the interaction lasted thirty seconds. I was working. She was a princess. I did not think about it beyond the moment."

"Yet she kept your waistcoat."

"I did not know that until she told me later."

"When did you learn she had kept it?"

"During our first conversation after the forum."

"And how did that make you feel? Knowing she had kept your clothing?"

"It was unexpected. Flattering."

"Did it suggest to you that she had romantic interest?"

"It suggested she had remembered the interaction. I did not assume romantic interest from that alone."

"When did you first feel attracted to Ms. Windsor? Romantically, not just physically."

"After the forum. When I saw her courage. When I realized she had risked everything to tell the truth."

"So her validation of your research made you attracted to her."

"Her integrity made me attracted to her. The validation demonstrated integrity."

"Convenient. She validates research that could destroy her family's reputation, and you fall in love with her. That does not seem suspicious to you?"

"What seems suspicious is Crown Estate spending millions on lawyers to attack our credibility instead of defending their actual practices."

"Dr. Marchetti, did you influence Ms. Windsor's statements at the forum?"

"No."

"Did you discuss your research with her before the forum?"

"No. We had not spoken since the gala."

"Did you know she would be attending the forum?"

"I knew a member of the royal family would be attending. I did not know it would be her specifically until she arrived."

"And when you saw her, what did you think?"

"I thought she was there to perform sympathy while changing nothing. I did not expect her to actually validate the research."

"But she did validate it. Why do you think that was?"

"Because she looked at the evidence and recognized institutional harm when she saw it."

"Or because she was attracted to you and wanted to impress you."

"Ms. Windsor does not strike me as someone who destroys her entire life to impress a server she met once at a gala."

"No. But she might destroy her life for a man she had developed romantic feelings for based on researching his tragic background and admiring his crusade for justice."

"That is a narrative you are constructing. It is not what actually happened."

"Then what actually happened, Dr. Marchetti?"

"A princess looked at evidence of institutional wrongdoing and chose truth over loyalty. A researcher presented findings supported by a decade of work. Two people made difficult choices based on principles, not romance. And Crown Estate is trying to discredit both of us because defending their actual practices is harder than attacking our motives."

Margaret Hartwell smiled. "We will see what the evidence shows."

They questioned me for another six hours. About my methodology. About my relationship timeline with Aanya. About whether I had manipulated her. About my father's death and whether my research was fundamentally revenge-seeking.

By the time we left the law firm, it was after six in the evening. Aanya and I were both exhausted.

"That was brutal," she said in the taxi back to Sarah's office.

"That was them building their case. Making us look bad so they do not have to defend their practices."

"Did it work?"

"I do not know. But we told the truth. That has to count for something."

At Sarah's office, we reviewed the deposition transcripts. Sarah looked concerned.

"They did what I expected. Painted you as naive and romantically compromised, Aanya. Painted you as revenge-seeking and biased, Dev. They are going to use this to argue that neither of you should be considered credible witnesses."

"So what do we do?" I asked.

"We bring our own expert witnesses. We show that your research has been independently verified. We demonstrate that Aanya did her own analysis before making statements. We prove that the timeline does not support romantic manipulation. And we make Crown Estate defend their actual practices instead of just attacking you."

"When?"

"Discovery is ongoing. We have two months before trial. We use that time to build the strongest possible case. But I need you both to understand: this is going to get worse before it gets better. Crown Estate is going to keep attacking your credibility. The media is going to keep speculating. You are going to be under constant scrutiny. Can you handle that?"

Aanya and I looked at each other.

"Yes," I said. "We can handle it."

"Together," Aanya added.

Sarah nodded. "Then let us get to work."