Chapter 4: What My Sister Wanted
Reginald moved the gathering into the boardroom.
Desmond sat opposite me, with Isolde and his attorney on either side.
Celeste remained near the window.
Desmond’s attorney slid the petition across the table.
“Until the emails are authenticated, Ms.
Ashcombe must not exercise control over Corvina.”
“I own fifty-eight percent,” I said.
“And someone using your account approved suspicious payments before the acquisition,” he replied.
“If you remove Mr.
Ashcombe tonight, it may look like retaliation intended to hide your involvement.”
Desmond leaned back.
“Perhaps you should have stayed home.”
I placed my wedding ring beside the petition.
“Perhaps you should have remembered who lived there with you.”
His eyes dropped to the ring.
“Take the deal,” he said.
“Keep your shares.
I remain chief strategy officer, and we tell the press this was a misunderstanding.”
“And Isolde?”
“She keeps her position.”
Isolde lifted her chin.
“My department protected Corvina’s reputation while you played at philanthropy.”
“You wore my mother’s earrings while doing it.”
Desmond’s hand came down on the table.
“Enough about the earrings.”
“No,” I said.
“You took them from my jewelry box.”
“You never wore them.”
Celeste flinched.
I turned to her.
“Why did you sign the transfers?”
“You want to do this in front of everyone?”
“You chose the audience when you brought those emails.”
Celeste’s lips trembled.
“Mother left you control of Ardent.
She left me a title that required your permission for every meaningful decision.”
“She left you forty percent of the family trust.”
“And you controlled the voting rights.”
“Because you were twenty-six and had never managed an investment.”
“I’m forty-one now, Wren.
You still speak to me like I’m twenty-six.”
Desmond watched us with quiet satisfaction.
I pushed my chair back.
“Did he promise to give you control?”
“He promised me a board seat and an independent division.”
“In return for your signature?”
“In return for finally treating me like someone whose name belonged on the door.”
I stood.
“You could have asked me.”
“I did.
You were always in a meeting.”
Celeste’s words landed harder than I expected.
My hand found the back of the chair.
Reginald stepped closer.
“Wren, sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not,” Celeste said.
“You became Mother after she passed—busy, correct, and impossible to reach.”
My knees weakened.
Desmond saw it.
“Let’s adjourn,” he said.
“Clearly, my wife isn’t fit to continue.”
A woman at the far end rose from her seat.
Mara Bell, Corvina’s sixty-three-year-old payroll manager, carried a paper cup toward me.
“She’s fit enough to save eight hundred paychecks,” Mara said.
“Drink this, Ms.
Ashcombe.”
Desmond frowned.
“This meeting is confidential.”
“So were the missing pension deposits my staff found,” Mara replied.
The cup warmed my shaking hands.
“What missing deposits?” I asked.
Mara placed a payroll ledger beside the legal petition.
“Three months of employee retirement contributions were removed, then replaced forty-eight hours before each audit.”
Desmond’s attorney closed the petition.
Isolde stared at him.
“You told me the transfers came from expansion reserves.”
“Be quiet,” Desmond said.
Mara tapped one line in the ledger.
“The replacement funds came from an account ending in 0417.”
The accountant entered the number into his tablet.
His expression changed.
“Who owns it?” I asked.
May you like
He rotated the screen toward me.
The account was registered in my name.
