Chapter 5 - THE WEDDING MONEY
Our wedding was expensive.
Embarrassingly.
Lorna planned it.
I approved a budget of $600,000.
Already absurd.
Naomi found projected cost:
$1.4 million.
“What?”
Venue.
Designer installations.
Private transportation.
Security.
Three-day guest program.
Custom jewelry.
Consultants.
Most disturbing:
$480,000 had already been paid from Bellamy Family Reserve.
The account I claimed not to know.
How could that happen?
Corporate controller explained.
Bellamy Family Reserve was not a corporate operating account.
It was a family trust liquidity pool administered by Hawthorne.
Historically used for:
Family education.
Emergency support.
Estate expenses.
Approved family events.
Beneficiary-related costs.
Could a wedding qualify?
Possibly.
At a cap.
Who approved Lorna’s overages?
Bellamy Family Administration.
The same administration that received Amelia’s old schedule.
This was becoming less about a criminal mastermind and more about systems that made personal spending easy if somebody had the right surname.
Still serious.
The $8 million transfer draft was different.
It proposed moving liquidity to a joint investment company after marriage.
Why?
To purchase a resort-management company called Rollins Coastal.
Owned partly by Lorna’s brother.
Conflict.
Was the acquisition bad?
Unknown.
Price:
$31 million.
Bellamy investment proposed:
$8 million from reserve.
Another $12 million from operating company.
Debt for remainder.
Had board approved?
No.
Preliminary only.
Lorna’s brother would benefit.
Lorna would indirectly benefit through family holdings.
Would Estelle’s trust review be required?
Possibly.
That explained pressure.
Not the entire secret.
Caleb Bellamy, my cousin and independent audit chair, showed me the draft.
“Who brought this?”
“Lorna.”
“To our company?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t I see it?”
“You were supposed to next week.”
“After the wedding.”
“Yes.”
Coincidence?
Maybe.
Then:
“Your aunt Margaret believed it was a good strategic opportunity.”
“Is it?”
“Could be.”
Again.
No cartoon villain deal.
Rollins Coastal managed eight beach resorts.
Strong revenues.
Debt problems.
Potential bargain.
But related-party investment required independent review.
Estelle’s governance schedule might make that review stronger.
Lorna knew.
Then Caleb handed me a text recovered from family-office records.
LORNA:
If Estelle remains primary household beneficiary after marriage, Arthur gets involved.
MARGARET:
That’s not fatal.
LORNA:
It will slow everything.
MARGARET:
Then slow it.
That surprised me.
My aunt had pushed back.
Good.
Not everyone was conspiring.
Then another:
LORNA:
Conrad will choose peace once we’re married.
That sentence felt familiar.
She expected marriage to make me easier to manage.
Maybe because I had already been easy to distract.
Work.
Grief.
Guilt.
Love.
Then Lenette called.
Estelle had said something in therapy.
Lorna had told her:
“After Daddy marries me, you won’t be the most important Bellamy anymore.”
A five-year-old did not understand trust rights.
May you like
She understood competition.
And Lorna had been competing with a child.
