Chapter 3: What Was Inside the Folder
I crossed the kitchen in four steps and picked it up before Genevieve could move.
She was on her feet immediately.
'That's private.'
'It has my name on it.'
'Dorian, put it down.'
I opened it.
The first page was a property transfer document.
My estate.
My signature at the bottom — except I had never signed it.
The date was two weeks from today.
The date of our wedding.
'Where did you get this?' I said.
'It's a draft.' Her voice was still smooth.
'My lawyer prepared it as part of standard estate planning.
It protects both of us.'
'This transfers full ownership to you.'
'In the event of your death, yes.
That's what estate planning is, Dorian.
It's completely normal.'
I looked at the caregiver.
She was watching Genevieve the way you watch something you already know is dangerous.
'How long have you had this?' I said.
'A few weeks.
I was going to discuss it with you after the wedding.'
'You were going to discuss transferring my entire estate to yourself after we were already married.'
'You're twisting my words.'
I set the folder on the counter and turned to the next page.
A second document.
A trust amendment.
My sons listed as beneficiaries — but with a clause I had never seen.
A guardian override provision.
In the event of my incapacity or death, full guardianship and financial control would transfer to Genevieve, bypassing my brother, bypassing my mother, bypassing everyone I had ever named.
My hands were steady.
I was surprised by that.
'Sit down, Genevieve.'
'I don't need to sit down.
You're making this into something it isn't.'
'Sit down.'
She sat.
The silk robe settled around her.
She crossed her legs and looked at me with an expression I recognized now for what it was — not love, not frustration, not even anger.
Calculation.
'Who helped you prepare these?' I said.
'My attorney.'
'Which attorney?'
'Marcus Hale.'
I knew the name.
Marcus Hale had done work for my company three years ago.
Before I let him go for billing irregularities I had never been able to fully prove.
'How long have you known Marcus Hale?' I said.
Something moved behind her eyes.
Fast.
Gone.
'We met through a mutual friend.'
'When?'
'I don't remember exactly.'
'Before or after we started dating?'
She uncrossed her legs.
'This is an interrogation now?'
The caregiver shifted my sons to her other hip.
Felix had stopped crying.
He was watching me with the same dark eyes his mother had.
I thought about his mother then — briefly, painfully — and pushed it away.
'I want you out of this house by noon,' I said.
Genevieve stood up.
The calculation was gone.
Something colder replaced it.
'If you end this engagement, I will go to every financial publication in this country and tell them you are an unfit father who left his infant sons in the care of a woman he was sleeping with.'
The caregiver's breath caught.
'That's not true,' I said.
'It doesn't have to be true.' Genevieve picked up her phone from the counter.
'It only has to be believable.
And with your company's IPO coming in six weeks, believable is enough.'
She walked out of the kitchen without looking back.
I stood at the counter with the folder in my hands and the sound of my sons breathing behind me.
The IPO.
May you like
She knew about the IPO timeline.
I had never told her that date.
