PART 2
For a long moment, the only sound in the dining room was champagne dripping off the edge of the table onto broken glass.
Then Vanessa laughed. It came out high and thin, the way people laugh when the floor tilts under them.
“Okay, this is insane. Claire doesn’t even have a job. She can’t sell a house. She can barely sell cookies at the church bazaar.”
Daniel was already pulling out his phone. His thumb jabbed at the screen. “I’m calling Ethan. Right now. And when he tells me you’ve lost your mind, I want you out of this house tonight.”
“Put him on speaker,” I said.
He did, mostly, I think, to humiliate me.
Ethan Cole picked up on the second ring. He was the operations director at Whitmore Builders, the man who kept the cranes moving and the payroll accurate while Daniel played golf with city council members. He had a quiet voice and the kind of patience you only get from cleaning up other people’s messes for a living.
“Daniel,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Don’t ‘Merry Christmas’ me. My wife is sitting here telling me the board fired me. Tell her she’s delusional.”
There was a pause. A long one.
“I’m sorry,” Ethan said. “I assumed the board’s counsel had reached you. The emergency session was at eight this morning. The vote was unanimous. Your access to company accounts was suspended at nine-fifteen. There’s a formal letter in your email.”
Daniel’s face went the color of the tablecloth.
“Unanimous? I own that company.”
“You own thirty-one percent of it,” Ethan said gently. “You haven’t owned a majority since the recapitalization three years ago. Harbor Lane Capital holds fifty-four percent. You signed the agreement, Daniel. I was in the room.”
Daniel hung up without another word. He stared at the phone as if it had bitten him.
Margaret found her voice first. She always did.
—END OF Chapter 1, —PRESS NEXT PART IN BOTTOM OF PAGE TO READ NEXT Chapter
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