Victoria: You can't cancel our wedding! We have five hundred guests arriving at the cathedral on Saturday!
Julian: Tell your guests to stay home, Victoria. The ceremony is officially canceled.
Victoria: My father invested forty million dollars in your maritime logistics firm last winter!
Julian: Your father didn't invest a single penny of his own capital, Victoria.
Victoria: What are you talking about?! Vance Maritime holds thirty percent of your company's equity shares!
Julian: Your father embezzled that forty million dollars directly from our employee pension reserves!
Victoria's manicured hands stiffened at her sides, her painted red lips parting in sudden, paralyzed shock.
Victoria: That is slander! My father is a respected corporate trustee on the Dallas commerce board!
Julian: Your father was arrested at his downtown Dallas office thirty-five minutes ago by federal marshals.
Victoria: Arrested?! That's a ridiculous lie you're inventing to scare me into backing down!
Julian: Grab your phone off the patio lounge chair, Victoria. Look at the morning business wire.
Victoria took two hurried steps toward the cushioned lounge chair, her heels clicking loudly against the wet flagstones.
She grabbed her gold smartphone with trembling fingers, rapidly tapping the screen with her long polished nails.
Her display was completely overwhelmed with forty missed calls and urgent news banners from the Texas Financial Chronicle.
Victoria: 'Vance Maritime raided under federal grand jury warrant; Chairman Arthur Vance detained on racketeering and wire fraud'...
Julian: The party is over, Victoria. Every bank account linked to your social security number was frozen at dawn.
Victoria: Frozen?! What about my personal trust fund?! That money came from my grandfather's estate!
Julian: Your grandfather's estate was liquidated five years ago to pay your father's foreign gambling debts in Macau.
Victoria: No... No! That's impossible! My father promised me thirty million dollars upon our marriage!
Julian: Your father promised you money he didn't own, because he needed you to marry me to stop our forensic audit.
Victoria dropped the gold phone onto the limestone patio, her face draining of color until she looked like a marble statue.
Victoria: You... You ran an audit on our family behind my back while we were planning the rehearsal dinner?
Julian: My late wife Clara spent two years setting up automated audit algorithms before she passed away.
Victoria: Clara again! Always Clara! She's rotting in a cemetery and she's still ruining my life!
Julian took one swift stride forward, his right arm swinging through the humid air like an iron bar.
The crack of the slap echoed across the swimming pool like a gunshot, snapping Victoria's head violently to the side.
Victoria: Ah!
The impact knocked her completely off balance, sending her crashing hard onto the wet patio tiles in a heap of red silk.
She clutched her burning red cheek with both hands, gasping for breath as water from the pool soaked the back of her designer gown.
Victoria: You struck me! A billionaire CEO laid hands on a high-society heiress!
Julian: You're lucky you can still stand on those feet, Victoria. Because you tried to drown my flesh and blood.
Victoria: You can't prove I did anything intentional! It's your word and a servant's word against mine!
Julian: Look up at the wooden pergola beam directly above your head, Victoria.
Victoria slowly lifted her tear-streaked face toward the cedar beams supporting the climbing white wisteria.
Concealed inside a dark brass junction box was a tiny, high-definition security camera pulsing with a steady blue indicator light.
Julian: That camera uploads forty-eight frames per second in 4K resolution directly to my private office server.
Victoria's hands began to shake violently, her fingers clawing at the wet stone as raw, suffocating panic took over.
Victoria: That camera... The electrical contractor told me the outdoor patio circuits were shut off for pool maintenance!
Julian: The public security lines were shut off, Victoria. The private executive satellite feeds run twenty-four hours a day.
Victoria: You set a trap for me... In your own backyard!
Julian: I set a guard to protect my motherless son from a predator who saw him as an obstacle to forty million dollars.