Chapter 235 - Well, Would You Look At That

Graydon twirled a pen between his fingers with surprising speed and agility as he listed off each person to his ally.

"Alice Kelly comes from a finance family and married into a family of lawyers. Her family, as most in your circle are, is s.e.xist so she doesn't have any shares in her own family's interests. Having a powerful ally outside of them would benefit her; I'm willing to bet that was how Aaron approached her about it.

"Roger Clark and Kyle Griffith are fairly similar; from old Harvard families who don't own businesses. They'll get some money when their parents die but otherwise have to pave their own ways. It would be easy to offer them jobs in the headquarters of one of the most stable financial institutions in the world in exchange for their help.

"And as for Cameron Singleton…he was a nobody who happened to make it into Harvard Business School after getting his undergraduate degree somewhere else. The interesting thing about him is that he's a World Champion poker player. He's the real key to all of this.

"He was the first of these dummies to join the board. Based on that, I think Aaron used his gambling skills to amass a fortune separate from his family's to buy up shares. He's been planning to leave the Hales for a long time."

Lacy scowled. Leave the Hales? There would be absolutely no point in marrying him if he left! She loved him but there was no way she would ever accept leaving the circle.

She was the socialite queen. He was the most eligible bachelor in this city. They were supposed to rule it together!

Something seemed fishy. If he was planning on leaving high society ever since he was in college, why would he get engaged to a socialite? That Carlisle girl probably wouldn't want to leave either.

"Why would he do that?" Lacy asked suspiciously.

Graydon shrugged. "Well I don't know. That man is a mystery. His actions are traceable but that doesn't mean they're explainable."

His tone seemed exasperated but in an almost fond way, as if he was talking about an old friend. She was fairly certain they had never met.

"…you seem awfully interested in Aaron."

"Well I won't deny that but I bear him no ill will. I find him and more specifically, his actions since high school, fascinating."

High school. That was when everything about Aaron began to change. It had to have been Keeley Hall's fault—he changed right around the time he started hanging around her. But she claimed she hadn't seen him since graduation.

Her eyes narrowed. "Do you know anything about a woman named Keeley Hall?"

"I can't say I do. Why? Is she related to Aaron? I thought his fiancée's name was Bethany," he said with interest.

"It is…but I have this strange feeling. She went to the same high school we did and he practically clung to her. It was completely beneath his dignity."

Graydon pulled out his phone and typed away on his key board until he found what he was looking for. A small smile lit his face.

"Interesting…very interesting. Were you aware they were friends on Facebook?"

"What?" Lacy cried, seizing his phone. She didn't even know Aaron had a Facebook account!

But it was right there in black and white. They had four mutual friends: Cameron and Jennica Singleton, Robert Hall, and Aiden Quinn. They were even tagged in a few wedding photos together.

That liar! Keeley said she hadn't seen Aaron since graduation but they were in a wedding together for one of Aaron's shareholders?! Even worse, he was friends with her father!

Lacy immediately checked her own Facebook. She looked up Aaron's name and found…nothing. This could only mean one thing. He blocked her. He specifically looked her up and blocked her!

Her hands shook in anger. How dare he? How dare he block her but be friends with that worthless peasant!

"What's the big deal about this girl?" Graydon asked casually. "He's engaged to someone else; she can't be a threat."

Her eyes were practically shooting sparks. "You know I drugged someone in high school but you don't know the name of the person I drugged?"

He raised an eyebrow and looked pleasantly surprised. "Keeley Hall, huh? My source said the girl you drugged hated Aaron. Be objectively honest. Did she?"

"Yes," Lacy said reluctantly.

Max certainly thought so anyway since she was always trying to avoid him. And she did smack him across the face after he kissed her at that dance.

If she hated him so much in high school why would she be Facebook friends with him now? None of this added up.

It was possible that they only got friendly again being a part of the same wedding…but Lacy ran into that woman at a bridal salon. By that point they had to have met up again during the wedding planning. And it didn't explain why Aaron was friends with Keeley's father.

Facebook didn't become popular until they were all halfway through college; there was no way he would have been friends with Robert Hall in high school when he was around Keeley all the time. He had to have been spending time at her father's house since coming back to New York.

"This certainly adds a little spice to things," Graydon said in a voice dripping with amus.e.m.e.nt. "You look like you're having an epiphany."

She spoke through gritted teeth. "He's friends with her father."

"My, my. Don't people normally only add their friends' parents if they're very close or dating?"

He took his phone back to check something. "Hmm. I don't see a Bethany Carlisle in Aaron's friends list."

"That doesn't mean anything," Lacy said dismissively.

Not everyone used social media. She had seen that woman up close—she was the real deal. Alistair had heard her voice on the phone talking to Aaron just the other day.

"Well, would you look at that," Graydon said mildly.

She peered over his shoulder at his phone and was astounded by what she saw. It was a picture of people dancing at a wedding. The focus was on the bride and groom but there, in the left corner, was Aaron—did he have a black eye?—smiling softly at Keeley Hall as they waltzed together.