18. Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
Nicole
The ocean behind Rebecca was so blue it looked fake.
Nicole stared at the phone propped on her father’s desk.
Her sister-in-law wore dark sunglasses and a white swimsuit, and her natural blond hair was piled on top of her head.
A glass of something bright orange sat beside her.
Beyond the shaded deck, clear water reached toward the sky.
Rebecca lowered her sunglasses. “Before you say anything, I called my brother five minutes ago and yelled at him until a waiter came over to ask whether I needed help.”
Nicole blinked. “Did you?”
“The waiter was lovely. Alexander was less helpful. He kept saying, ‘You’re right.’ Do you know how hard it is to fight with somebody who agrees with you?”
“He learned that from me.”
“Well, I hate it. It’s manipulative personal growth.”
Nicole almost smiled. Almost. The effort died before it reached her mouth.
Rebecca’s expression changed. “How are you? And don’t say fine. You look like you haven’t slept since the invention of electricity.”
“I slept a little.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Nicole looked at the dark screen of the second phone beside her.
Her content team had control of her accounts.
She hadn’t opened any social app since the stolen video appeared, but she still felt the pull to check.
It wasn’t curiosity anymore. She was afraid something new had appeared and no one had told her.
“I’m angry,” she said. “I’m scared they have more. Every time my phone lights up, I think it’s another photograph or another message they’ve decided belongs to everyone.”
Rebecca took off her sunglasses. “Alexander said they closed the way the intruder got in.”
“They did. That doesn’t tell me what the intruder copied first.”
“No.” Rebecca’s mouth tightened. “It doesn’t. I’m sorry, Nicky. This person is sick. Calling it love makes it worse.”
“People are thanking them.”
“People are idiots.”
“Some of them think they’re supporting me.”
“Then they can support you by shutting up and not sharing stolen videos of your marriage. It isn’t a difficult assignment.”
Nicole rubbed her thumb over the edge of the desk. “Alexander’s statement helped.”
“It was a good statement. I told him so right before I called him a self-important jackass. Both things can be true.”
“He let me change it.”
“As he should’ve.”
“And he didn’t make the statement about being cleared. He admitted everything else.”
Rebecca leaned closer to the camera. “I’m aware. Don’t mistake my desire to drown him in this beautiful ocean for an inability to see what he’s doing right.”
“You’re not even near him.”
“I have resources.”
That time, the corner of Nicole’s mouth moved.
Rebecca caught it. “There she is.”
“Don’t get excited.”
“Too late. Now let’s discuss that tramp.”
Nicole sighed. “Rebecca.”
“Angela kissed a married man without asking, tried again after he pulled away, and then explained his own marriage to him. I feel my language showed restraint.”
“Her apology was clear.”
“Good. It was also owed. Alexander rejecting her doesn’t erase the fact that she decided your pain meant she had an opening.”
“I know.”
“And her apology doesn’t decide what you do with your husband. Neither does his statement. Neither do the twins. Neither do I.”
Nicole went still. Rebecca said the word before Nicole could avoid it.
“If you divorce him,” Rebecca continued, “I’m on your side. Completely. I won’t deliver messages, defend the Cohan name, or tell you to think of the family. You and the girls are my family. Alexander can be family from a safe distance while he suffers the consequences of being an ass.”
The clean support should’ve been easy to accept.
Instead, pressure gathered behind Nicole’s ribs.
She knew she could leave. Harold had made that real.
Her parents would help her. Rebecca wouldn’t punish her.
Alexander had promised not to fight her with money, lawyers, or the twins.
She no longer needed a legal appointment or a packed suitcase to prove she could leave. The choice was simply hers.
“I don’t want a divorce,” she said.
Rebecca didn’t move on the screen.
Hearing the words out loud frightened Nicole more than thinking them had. She pressed her palms together under the desk.
“I haven’t decided to go home,” she added. “I’m not saying everything’s fixed. It isn’t. But I don’t want to end my marriage.”
“Okay.”
Nicole frowned. “Okay?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“Would you prefer a speech? I can prepare one. There’ll be slides.”
“You always have a speech.”
“True, but this is your marriage. You said you don’t want a divorce. I believe you know what you want better than I do. Very modern of me.”
Nicole sat back. “I think it might be possible to save us.”
“Because of the girls?”
“Partly. They’re happier. They don’t ask whether he’s really coming anymore. They don’t watch the door every time he has them. They expect him, and he’s there. They deserve the chance to have both of us if we can give them a healthy family.”
Rebecca waited.
Nicole knew what she was waiting for. “And I still love him.”
“There it is.”
“The girls aren’t an excuse. I could give them two good homes. I know that now. I want the marriage because I want him too. I just need to know the man he’s becoming is the man he’ll stay.”
“That sounds annoyingly sensible.”
“I’ve had a difficult week.”
“You’ve had a difficult husband.” Her sister-in-law chuckled.
“Also true.”
Rebecca lifted her orange drink toward the camera. “Then I support not divorcing him. I also reserve the right to support divorcing him later if he ruins this. My loyalty is flexible in only one direction.”
“Toward me?”
“Obviously. If you need me to fly home and cut his balls off, send one text. I’ll leave the Maldives immediately.”
“You’re so generous.”
“I’m a giver.”
“What do your parents think?”
Rebecca groaned. “No one knows. They’re hosting a private philosophical gathering at the castle.”
Nicole stared. “A what?”
“A private philosophical gathering. That’s the complete description. Father sent it as though those words explain why neither of them can answer a normal phone call.”
“Did you ask what it means?”
“Of course not. Nobody in the family has asked. Nobody wants the answer.”
“Maybe it’s a book club.”
“At midnight? With a hunting horn?”
The laugh escaped Nicole before she could stop it. It came out rough and surprised, then grew when Rebecca looked offended by the idea of a midnight castle book club.
“They’re discussing symbolism,” Nicole said.
“They’re summoning something.” Rebecca said.
Nicole covered her mouth, laughing harder. It was the first time she’d laughed since she saw her private video on a stranger’s account. The fear remained, but for one minute it wasn’t the only thing inside her.
Rebecca smiled. “Better.”
“A little.”
“A little counts.”
Over the following week, Nicole stayed away from social media.
Her team managed the accounts and sent only the information she needed.
The anonymous account remained gone. No more private material appeared, and the monitoring team found no new attempt to enter her devices or accounts.
The investigators still couldn’t tell her what the intruder had copied or who they were.
Nicole lived with that uncertainty because there was no clean way around it.
She separated her work from everything else.
Public content and business files remained in one secured system.
Private messages and photographs had their own protection.
Every record, image, and schedule involving Prim and Rose stayed offline.
The new limits took effort, but the effort belonged to her.
It didn’t feel like a stranger forcing her out of her own life.
She kept her social apps dark and went to the skincare studio instead.
The finished walls looked clean under the wide window in the filming corner.
Nicole chose two treatment beds and pale oak storage for the treatment rooms, then spent far too long deciding between rolling stools that appeared identical until she sat on them.
She arranged the consultation space, checked measurements, and selected the professional equipment she could use within her esthetics scope.
Each decision moved the suite closer to a real practice.
At the end of the week, Nicole returned to her father’s office and set her phone on its stand.
The bright light came on. Her face appeared on the screen.
She looked rested enough, but she didn’t add the polished smile she’d used the last time she recorded a video.
She wasn’t going to perform a perfect life for people who’d just watched part of it get stolen.
She pressed record.
“My name is Nicole Cohan. I’m a California-licensed esthetician, a business owner, and the person who built this account and this community around honest skincare education.”
Her voice stayed even.
“A private recording was stolen from my account and posted without my permission. If you share, repost, edit, or direct people toward stolen material, you are continuing that violation. Please don’t call it support for me. It isn’t.”
Nicole paused long enough to breathe, not long enough to retreat.
“I won’t discuss my daughters. I won’t discuss the current state of my marriage or an active investigation. I also won’t share the address or opening schedule of my new studio while the person responsible remains unidentified. Those are boundaries, not invitations to guess.”
She thought of all the followers who’d refused to touch the recording, reported copies, and reminded others that Nicole was a person rather than a public event.
“Thank you to everyone who respected my privacy. I’m preparing to open a small, appointment-only esthetics studio, and I’ll share more when it’s safe and when I choose to.
This platform is returning to skincare, evidence, and the professional work I want to put into the world.
That’s why I created it, and I’m not giving it up. ”
Nicole stopped the recording. Her hand shook as she reached for the phone, but she watched the full video without looking away. She sent it to her team with one instruction – “Post exactly as recorded.”
When the video went live, Nicole didn’t open the comments.
She turned back to the camera.
“Let’s talk about LED treatments,” she said after starting a new recording.
“A red light isn’t magic because somebody put it in an expensive mask.
The wavelength, dose, treatment plan, and condition of your skin matter.
More isn’t automatically better, and no light replaces sunscreen or appropriate medical care. ”
Her shoulders loosened as she spoke. This was her language.
Clear claims, useful limits, the difference between what a treatment could do and what marketing promised it could do.
By the end of the segment, Nicole wasn’t thinking about the person who’d watched her.
She was thinking about clients, education, and the practice she was building with her own hands.
The studio deliveries were scheduled soon after. Several large pieces needed to be received, checked, and placed while the delivery crews were present. Nicole planned to spend the day there and stay as long as the work required.
Then both her mother and father became ill.
“We’re fine,” her mother insisted from the far end of the kitchen. “Your father and I can manage two small children.”
Her father, pale and wrapped in a sweater, shook his head. “No, we can’t.”
Her mother glared at him. “You could show loyalty.”
“I love you. Today I’m showing judgment.”
Nicole pointed toward the hallway. “Both of you are going back to bed.”
“Bossy,” her mother muttered.
“Contagious,” Nicole replied.
Prim and Rose were occupied in the living room, arguing over a purple crayon and the concept of sharing. Nicole stepped into her father’s office and called Alexander. Tomorrow wasn’t one of Alexander’s nights, and she was giving him less than a day’s notice.
He answered immediately. “Is everyone all right?”
“Yes. My parents are sick, but it seems minor. The girls are fine.”
“What do you need?”
The question came without panic or an order. Nicole hadn’t prepared a speech or a backup plan. She didn’t need one.
“I know it isn’t one of your nights, but can you take Prim and Rose tomorrow and keep them overnight? I have deliveries arriving at the studio, and I need to be there to receive and organize everything.”
“Yes. I’ll pick them up and keep them overnight. Tell me when you want them back.”
Nicole waited for a question about why the deliveries couldn’t move, whether Maya could help at the Larson house, or whether the work really required the whole day. None came.
“That was easy,” she said.
“It should be. They’re my children, and you need time for your work.”
Warmth moved through her so quickly that she had to look down. “You don’t have anything you need to change?”
“If I do, I’ll change it.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said.
“You’re welcome. Do Susan and Paul need anything?”
“Rest. I’m sending them to bed.”
“Your mother will hate that.”
“She does.”
“Good luck.”
The dry note in his voice was familiar enough to make her smile. “I’ll need it.”
Nicole found Prim and Rose on the floor with the purple crayon between them like evidence in a trial.
“I have news,” she said.
Both girls looked up.
“Tomorrow, you’re going to Daddy’s house. And you’re sleeping there.”
Rose jumped to her feet. “A Daddy sleepover!”
Prim threw both hands into the air. “I get Smudge!”
They ran toward Nicole, talking over each other about bath boats, stories, and which pajamas they would pack. Neither asked whether Alexander would truly be there. Neither needed Nicole to promise that work wouldn’t take him away.
Daddy’s house had become something they could celebrate without fear.