Chapter 4: The Photograph They Meant to Use
Grace held the phone toward Declan.
“Did anyone on your team take this?”
“No.”
Ethan reached for it.
“What does ‘the rest’ mean?”
“You tell me,” Grace said.
“Your mistress works in communications.”
“She is not my—”
Grace’s stare stopped him.
Miriam took the phone.
“The photograph was taken less than an hour ago.
Someone is still inside the resort.”
The conference-room doors opened, and a hotel security manager stepped in.
“Mr.
Pierce, we found Ms.
Reed’s company badge beside a service elevator.
Her room has been cleared.”
Ethan called Vanessa again.
This time, the number had been disconnected.
“She left me here,” he whispered.
Grace closed the folder.
“You brought her here.”
“That does not make me part of her scheme.”
“No.
The transfers make you part of it.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“And what makes you part of Pierce’s scheme?”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“You arrive at a luxury resort with another man, carrying private company documents, and expect everyone to believe this is business?”
Declan stood.
“It is business.”
“Is the baby business too?”
Grace’s hand tightened beneath her stomach.
Ethan saw it and continued.
“Perhaps we should ask whose child she is carrying before Grace claims the moral high ground.”
The room went still.
Grace gripped the table.
“You know she is your daughter.”
“I know what you told me.”
Her chair scraped as she stood.
“You heard her heartbeat.
You painted her room.”
“And now I see you with him.”
Grace’s breath caught.
Miriam moved toward her, but Declan reached her first and steadied the chair.
“Sit down,” Declan said softly.
“I don’t need—”
“Yes, you do.
Not because he won.
Because your daughter needs you to breathe.”
Grace looked at him, then lowered herself into the chair.
Ethan’s eyes shifted away.
“I was angry.”
“You wanted to break me,” Grace said.
“So you used our child.”
“I said I was angry.”
“No.
You said what you thought would hurt most.”
A knock sounded.
An older housekeeper stood at the door holding a red evening bag.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I heard you were looking for the woman from Villa Nine.”
Ethan recognized the bag.
“That belongs to Vanessa.”
“She left it under the bed,” the housekeeper said.
“A phone inside keeps ringing.”
The security manager set the bag on the table.
Miriam pulled on gloves and removed a small phone.
“No passcode,” she said.
A new message appeared as she lifted it.
DID HE SIGN AWAY GRACE’S SHARES YET?
Ethan stared at the screen.
“I never agreed to that.”
Grace looked at him.
“Agreed to what?”
He sat down without permission.
“Vanessa prepared an emergency refinancing package.
She said your shares had to secure the loan.”
“You were going to pledge my inheritance?”
“Only until the company recovered.”
Harold pushed his chair back.
“You cannot pledge shares you do not own.”
“I had Grace’s proxy.”
Miriam opened the folder and removed their marital trust agreement.
“Your proxy ended the moment you used it for undisclosed personal benefit.”
Ethan looked from the document to Grace.
“You planned this.”
“My father planned it,” she said.
“He knew love could make me trusting.
He made sure trust could not make me powerless.”
For one second, Ethan had no answer.
Then every phone in the room chimed.
A news alert filled the screens: PIERCE GLOBAL TARGETS PREGNANT HEIRESS’S COMPANY AFTER SECRET ISLAND MEETING.
Beneath the headline was a second photograph—Grace entering Declan’s hotel suite the previous evening.
Ethan held up his phone.
“Now the board will believe you?”
Grace read the final line of the article.
A source close to the family claims Grace Calloway’s unborn child may not be her husband’s.
May you like
Her knees buckled as the baby shifted sharply beneath her hand.
And this time, Ethan did not move to catch her.
