Chapter 3 - What He Signed
Nathaniel remembered signing the document.
That was the worst part.
Nine days before his accident, he had sat in his office overlooking downtown Manhattan while Elena placed a temporary financial power of attorney on his desk.
Nathaniel had been preparing to travel to Singapore for an acquisition.
Victoria was supposed to manage a renovation at their Connecticut estate and finalize several charitable grants while he was overseas.
The authority was limited.
Or Nathaniel remembered it being limited.
Now Elena spread the original pages across a portable tray.
“This is what you signed.”
Nathaniel read slowly.
The power granted Victoria authority over specific household accounts, charitable payments under $100,000, and emergency property expenses.
Expiration: ninety days.
“This ended seventeen months ago.”
“Yes.”
Victoria stood at the foot of the bed.
“The original did.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
Elena’s jaw tightened.
“What does that mean?”
Victoria produced a document from her handbag.
An amendment.
The first page stated that Nathaniel’s power of attorney would remain effective indefinitely if he suffered a physical condition that substantially impaired his ability to conduct ordinary business.
Nathaniel stared at the signature.
It looked nearly perfect.
Elena took the page.
“I have never seen this.”
“I found it in Nathaniel’s office after the accident.”
“Convenient.”
Victoria smiled coldly.
“It was notarized.”
Elena examined the seal.
Nathaniel watched her expression.
“Who?”
“Gerald Pike.”
Nathaniel knew the name.
A former Carter Meridian corporate secretary who had retired two years earlier.
Elena photographed every page.
“I’m having this examined.”
“Do whatever you want.”
Victoria turned toward Nathaniel.
“You were always careless when you were rushing. You signed documents without reading them.”
Nathaniel hated that she was partly right.
Before the accident, he could review a sixty-page acquisition agreement line by line and then sign household paperwork without glancing at the second page.
Victoria had complained about it.
“You trust strangers with billion-dollar companies more than you trust me,” she once said.
He had laughed.
He wished he remembered whether she had laughed too.
Elena asked Victoria to leave again.
This time she did.
Nathaniel remained silent.
Claire adjusted his pillow.
Elena waited.
Finally Nathaniel said, “Could I have signed it?”
“You could have.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
She did not soften the answer.
“That is why we investigate instead of assuming.”
“What if it’s real?”
“Then we examine what Victoria did under it. Authority is not permission to steal.”
Nathaniel stared at the ceiling.
For months everyone had praised his mental strength.
Doctors told him his cognitive function was untouched.
Friends called him inspirational until the word began to feel like another kind of cage.
But alone at night, Nathaniel had wondered whether the accident had changed his memory.
Victoria had encouraged that fear.
She would mention conversations that never happened.
Payments he never approved.
Visitors he supposedly refused to see.
One evening his younger sister Ava arrived at the gate and was turned away because Victoria said Nathaniel was sleeping.
He had not known she came.
“Ava,” Nathaniel whispered.
Elena understood.
“You want me to call her?”
“Yes.”
Victoria had told Nathaniel that Ava stopped visiting because she could not handle seeing him disabled.
Nathaniel had believed her.
That betrayal suddenly seemed almost worse than the money.
Claire lowered her eyes.
“There’s something else.”
Nathaniel turned toward her.
“A month after I started working here, Mrs. Carter instructed the household staff never to connect personal calls without going through her first.”
Nathaniel’s heart sank.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was a privacy rule.”
“Until?”
“Until your sister called me directly.”
Nathaniel stared.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Claire looked ashamed.
“She said she had been trying to speak to you for six months.”
Nathaniel felt anger rise through the parts of his body that still obeyed him.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I would find a way.”
Elena took out her phone.
“I’m calling Ava now.”
The bedroom door suddenly opened.
Victoria entered without knocking.
“Before everyone turns this into a conspiracy,” she said, “perhaps Nathaniel should remember why his sister stopped being welcome.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
Victoria walked toward the bed.
“Ava opposed our marriage.”
“That was twelve years ago.”
“She opposed my place in the company.”
“She opposed giving you a board seat.”
Victoria smiled.
“Exactly.”
Nathaniel realized something.
“You wanted a board seat after the accident.”
“You needed representation.”
“I had representation.”
Victoria’s eyes moved toward Elena.
Then Claire.
Then back to Nathaniel.
“No,” she said softly. “You had people who wanted to keep you dependent.”
Claire stiffened.
Nathaniel watched Victoria perform concern with terrifying precision.
It was the same expression she used at hospital press conferences.
The wounded wife.
The loyal caretaker.
The woman carrying an unbearable burden.
Nathaniel suddenly wondered how many people had been watching that performance while he lay beside her believing it too.
Elena’s phone rang.
Ava.
Elena answered on speaker.
“Ava, I’m with Nathaniel.”
Silence.
Then a woman inhaled sharply.
“Nate?”
Nathaniel’s throat tightened.
“Ava.”
His sister began crying.
“Oh my God. Nate, I thought you hated me.”
Nathaniel looked directly at Victoria.
“No.”
Ava’s voice trembled.
“Victoria sent me your letter.”
Nathaniel frowned.
“What letter?”
Victoria stopped moving.
Ava continued.
“The one saying you never wanted to see me again.”
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
Nathaniel watched his wife’s face.
And understood that the forged financial documents might not be the first things she had written in his name.
