Chapter 9 - THE MORNING AFTER YES
Z
By nine the next morning, half of Cincinnati knew Catherine Bennett was engaged.
By ten, strangers knew Nathan's income.
By eleven, someone had published a photograph of his truck.
Nathan discovered this while standing in his kitchen wearing sweatpants and trying to convince Emma that chocolate cereal did not qualify as a balanced breakfast.
“Dad.”
“No.”
“You haven't even heard my argument.”
“You're holding the box.”
Emma lowered the cereal.
“People online think you're a gold digger.”
Nathan stopped pouring coffee.
“That was not the argument I expected.”
Emma turned her tablet around.
A local business blog had posted photographs from the fundraiser.
One showed Nathan kneeling in front of Catherine.
Another showed Catherine kissing him.
The headline read:
BILLIONAIRE HOTEL CEO ENGAGED TO CINCINNATI CARPENTER.
Nathan stared.
“Billionaire?”
“She technically isn't.”
“Thank God. I was worried we'd have to upgrade the toaster.”
Emma did not laugh.
Nathan looked at her properly.
“What?”
“Read the comments.”
“No.”
“Dad.”
“Never read comments. That's a rule of civilization.”
“They're saying you planned it.”
His smile disappeared.
Emma looked angry now.
Not hurt for herself.
For him.
One comment suggested Nathan had deliberately positioned himself beside Catherine at Daniel’s wedding after researching her wealth.
Another called him “the luckiest handyman in Ohio.”
A third wondered how long the marriage would last after “the carpenter gets access to the Bennett money.”
Nathan closed the page.
“People are stupid.”
“That doesn't bother you?”
“Of course it bothers me.”
He sat beside her.
“But anonymous strangers don't get to decide what happened to us.”
Emma studied him.
“Does Ms. Bennett know?”
As if summoned, Nathan's phone rang.
Catherine.
He answered.
“Morning.”
“I’m outside.”
Nathan blinked.
He looked through the window.
A black SUV stood at the curb.
“You couldn't call from the car?”
“I did.”
“You know what I mean.”
The front door opened twenty seconds later.
Catherine walked in wearing jeans, a wool coat, and an expression Nathan recognized immediately.
CEO mode.
Dangerously calm.
Emma pointed toward her.
“Internet people are stupid.”
“Good morning to you too.”
Catherine placed a bakery box on the counter.
“I brought croissants.”
Emma abandoned cereal instantly.
Nathan crossed his arms.
“What happened?”
Catherine sighed.
“My communications director wants to make a statement.”
“No.”
“I knew you'd say that.”
“Then why come?”
“To hear you say it in person.”
“Very efficient.”
She looked at Emma.
“Would you mind giving us five minutes?”
Emma grabbed two croissants.
“I'm twelve, not deaf. I'll be upstairs.”
When she disappeared, Catherine removed her coat.
Nathan noticed she had slept badly.
“You've been reading it too.”
“My board sent me a media summary at six.”
“Romantic.”
“Nathan.”
He softened.
“I’m okay.”
“I’m not.”
He waited.
Catherine walked toward the window.
“They went through your business records.”
“Public records.”
“They photographed your house.”
“Still public from the sidewalk.”
“They mentioned Emma's illness.”
That changed everything.
Nathan went very still.
“What?”
Catherine handed him her phone.
An article had already appeared.
It described Emma's childhood leukemia, Laura's death, Nathan's medical debt, and the refinancing he had done years earlier to keep Cole Woodworks alive.
Nothing illegal.
Nothing secret enough to require hacking.
Just pieces of a family's worst years arranged for entertainment.
Nathan set down the phone carefully.
“Who gave them this?”
“We don't know.”
“You think Richard?”
“I think Richard has already demonstrated what he considers acceptable.”
Nathan looked toward the stairs.
“Emma saw this?”
“Not the detailed article.”
“She will.”
“Yes.”
His hand tightened.
Catherine reached for it.
Nathan did not pull away.
That mattered.
“I can have our lawyers contact the sites using Emma's medical information.”
“Can they remove it?”
“Some. Not all.”
He exhaled.
For years, he had protected Emma's story because it belonged to her.
Now strangers were discussing her childhood as supporting evidence in a theory that her father wanted money.
“I hate this,” he said.
“I know.”
“No, I hate what happens around your world.”
Catherine flinched.
Nathan immediately saw it.
“That's not the same as hating your world.”
“Sometimes I don't know the difference.”
He turned toward her.
“Catherine.”
“My entire life, people have sold stories about me. They photographed my mother’s funeral. They published my father’s stroke before my sister knew. When my engagement ended at thirty-four, reporters camped outside my apartment.”
Nathan stared.
She had never told him that.
“You were engaged before?”
“For seven months.”
“What happened?”
“He sold information about me to a reporter.”
Nathan's anger vanished beneath something sadder.
“Oh.”
“He said it was accidental.”
“You didn't believe him.”
“He accepted forty thousand dollars.”
“Hard to accidentally invoice somebody.”
A reluctant smile touched her mouth.
Then disappeared.
“Nathan, I need to tell you something before somebody else does.”
His stomach tightened.
“What?”
“My father called this morning.”
Nathan knew very little about Henry Bennett.
Only that Catherine spoke to him perhaps four times a year.
That he lived in Florida.
That their relationship had enough sharp edges for Nathan to avoid pressing.
“What did he want?”
“To congratulate me.”
“That sounds normal.”
“It wasn't.”
Catherine looked directly at him.
“He is coming to Cincinnati.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Nathan waited.
“And?”
“He wants to meet you.”
“That still sounds normal.”
“Nathan.”
“What?”
“My father hasn't voluntarily stepped inside the Bennett Grand in six years.”
That silenced him.
Catherine lowered her voice.
“He left the company after I forced him out.”
Nathan remembered what she had once said.
She inherited seven hotels and eighty-four million dollars in debt.
“You forced out your own father?”
“I saved his company.”
The front door opened upstairs.
Emma's footsteps appeared on the staircase.
“Are you fighting?”
“No,” they answered simultaneously.
Emma appeared.
“That's suspicious.”
Nathan smiled faintly.
Catherine did not.
Her phone vibrated.
She read the screen.
All color left her face.
“What?” Nathan asked.
She handed him the phone.
A message from Henry Bennett.
Dinner. 7 p.m. My suite.
Then another.
Bring Nathan.
And one final sentence.
Before you marry him, there are things he deserves to know about you.
Nathan read it twice.
Catherine's hands were trembling.
He handed the phone back.
“What things?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
Catherine looked at him.
He knew her well enough now.
She was frightened.
Not of her father.
Of what her father might say.
Nathan reached for her hand.
“Whatever it is, I'd rather hear it from you.”
Catherine stared at their joined hands.
May you like
Then whispered the sentence that changed the morning completely.
“Before I became CEO, I made a decision that ruined someone’s life.”
