Chapter 283 Vivian Wasn't Sick

Chapter 283 Vivian Wasn't Sick

"Your conscience won't let you hurt Seraphine? Now that's something."

Charles repeated Eli's words back to him, his expression caught somewhere between a smirk and something harder to read.

"Eli, tell me — did that conscience of yours happen to mention what happens to people who betray me?"

"Mr. Stuart, you can fire me, sue me, blacklist me from the entire industry. Whatever you decide, I'll take it."

Eli's lips moved slightly, like he was searching for more words that wouldn't come. His eyes held fear, and unease — but not a trace of regret.

"I'm not going to fire you."

Charles closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath.

"Didn't I just tell you? After everything that happened — being locked up, cut off — I had a lot of time to think. I've finally gotten clear on where I stand. The fault was mine, from the start."

"You were right. I failed Seraphine. I hurt her, more than once. And Vivian..." He paused. "Vivian is not the person I convinced myself she was."

"I should have stopped making excuses for her a long time ago."

Charles went quiet for a moment.

When he spoke again, his voice had dropped to something rough and worn.

"Eli, honestly? I should be thanking you. If you hadn't gone behind my back, my plan would have gone through — and if I'd destroyed Seraphine's career, any chance of winning her back would've been gone for good."

Even as things stood, winning Seraphine back would be an uphill battle.

What had already happened couldn't be undone.

Eli raised an eyebrow. Privately, he found Charles's moment of reflection almost laughable — but he kept his expression neutral and held his tongue.

"Mr. Stuart, now that you can see Ms. Brooks for who she really is, there's something else you should look at."

Eli reached over to the passenger seat for his briefcase and pulled out a manila folder.

"You once asked me to find a way to get a blood sample from Ms. Brooks and have it tested at a hospital you could trust. I followed through on that."

"The results came back clean. Ms. Brooks is in perfect health. There's no cancer."

"I also looked into her doctors."

"There are still a few loose ends I haven't tied up, but one thing is clear: every physician who has treated Ms. Brooks graduated from the same university."

"The largest donor and sitting board chair of that university is Alexander Smith — the current head of the Smith Family. After Ms. Brooks went abroad, she was frequently seen accompanying Mr. Smith to private events and high-society functions."

"For a while, a lot of people assumed she was angling to become Mrs. Smith. She even made her feelings known publicly — in front of an audience."

"But Mr. Smith shut it down in an interview. He made it unambiguous that he would not be marrying Ms. Brooks."

Charles took the folder from Eli and went through every page with quiet, deliberate focus. When he finished, he let out a short, cold sound — barely a laugh.

"You're saying the reason Alexander vouched for Vivian, brought her into his circle, treated her like someone who mattered — is because he believed she saved his life during an assassination attempt. But the person who actually saved him was Seraphine?"

"Yes."

Eli gave a firm nod, his face unreadable.

"And here's where it gets interesting, Mr. Stuart. The attempt on Mr. Smith's life and the night you were drugged — they happened on the same day, in the same hotel."

"I was able to recover the security footage through some back channels."

"The footage shows that when Mr. Smith was attacked, it was Ms. Lavien who pulled him out of the line of danger and hid him in a storage room off one of the service corridors. At some point during that, one of her earrings fell into his jacket pocket."

"After that, Ms. Lavien went to find a doctor for him — but ran into you. You'd been drugged. You weren't in control of yourself. She was pulled into a room, and..." Eli stopped there. He didn't need to finish.

"Fortunately, even though Ms. Lavien never made it back with help, Mr. Smith's own security eventually located him. He made it out."

"Once he'd recovered, Mr. Smith sent someone out with the earring to track down whoever had saved him. Ms. Brooks got wind of it, identified the earring as Ms. Lavien's —"

"— and saw an opening."

"She used a visit to your place, ostensibly to end things with you, to take the matching earring from Ms. Lavien's belongings. Then she stepped into Ms. Lavien's place and claimed the credit for saving his life."

"Ms. Brooks didn't go abroad because your mother pressured her out. She wasn't going overseas for any kind of self-improvement. She went after Mr. Smith."

"And the reason she came back? Because she couldn't get him."

The vein along Charles's temple surfaced. He held himself still, jaw tight, and forced the anger down until he could push a single sentence through.

"Does Alexander know Vivian isn't the one who saved him?"

"Not at first. But he started having doubts a little over a year ago."

Eli lifted one shoulder in a slight shrug, his tone even.

"That's around the time he stopped bringing Ms. Brooks to events and publicly distanced himself from any suggestion of a romantic connection. That said, because he wasn't certain he'd actually been deceived, when Ms. Brooks came to him asking for help falsifying medical records, he didn't say no."

Eli paused.

Something flickered in his eyes — brief, and cold.

"One more thing, Mr. Stuart. I think you need to hear this. Yesterday evening, Mr. Fisher was bailed out of police custody. The person who arranged the release was Mr. Smith's personal assistant."

"My read? The one who actually put up the money was Ms. Brooks. Which means everything Mr. Fisher said out at the Berkeley Estate may well be true. He has something on her — and she's paying to keep him quiet."

"There's also something else I turned up while digging into Ms. Brooks. Mr. Smith has been looking for the security footage from that night seven years ago."

"I was able to recover it through the methods I used. His people are capable — they'll likely get there too. If nothing goes sideways, Mr. Smith is going to find out who really saved his life. And soon."

---

If Alexander found out it was Seraphine who'd saved him — would he fall for her?

Charles's grip tightened on the folder. The thought unsettled him in a way he didn't want to examine too closely, and more than once he came close to telling Eli to find a way to get ahead of it — to slow Alexander down before he got there.

But when it came to it, he didn't say that.

"Get in touch with Alexander's assistant or his attorneys. Share everything you've found with them directly. And pass along a message from me."

"Tell Alexander he's welcome to show his gratitude to Seraphine. But he doesn't get to push her into anything she doesn't want. He doesn't pressure her. He doesn't corner her. He doesn't try to take her out of the country against her wishes."

"And if he hurts her —" Charles's voice dropped, quiet and without any particular drama. "— it won't matter that he's the head of the Smith Family. I won't let it go."