Chapter 1 - THE DOOR
Mary Caldwell opened the presidential suite eleven minutes before her wedding and found her future husband in bed with her maid of honor.
For one second, nobody moved.
Ethan jerked upright, white sheets twisted around his waist. Vanessa grabbed the blanket with both hands and dragged it to her chest.
“Mary,” Vanessa whispered. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
Mary’s fingers tightened around the silver clutch in her hand. Behind her, the hallway hummed with distant elevator music and the muffled laughter of guests heading toward the ballroom.
She stared at Ethan. Then at Vanessa.
“It looks exactly like the end of your lives.”
Ethan climbed out of bed so fast he nearly fell. “Wait. Please. I can explain.”
“Don’t come near me.”
“Mary—”
She pulled the suite door shut between them and turned the dead bolt from the outside with the event manager’s master key she had borrowed five minutes earlier to surprise Ethan.
From inside the room, Ethan pounded once on the door. “Put the phone down and let me explain!”
“Mary? Aren’t you supposed to be walking down the aisle?”
“I was.”
Mary removed her engagement ring. Her hand shook only once. She set the diamond on a narrow table beneath a gold-framed mirror.
“Cancel the wedding,” she said. “And trigger the repurchase clause on every restricted share issued to Ethan.”
Daniel inhaled sharply. “Mary, that clause requires cause.”
“I know.”
“Do we have cause?”
Then she opened her clutch and pulled out a folded printout she had found in Ethan’s laptop bag that morning.
Three wire transfers. Two shell companies. Her forged electronic signature.
“Yes,” she said. “We have more than enough.”
The pounding on the door stopped.
May you like
And from inside the suite, Ethan said one sentence that made Mary realize the affair was only the smallest part of what he had done.
“Vanessa,” he hissed, “where’s the drive?”
