Chapter 2 - THE WIFE HE NEEDED UNTIL MIDNIGHT
Grant came home at 11:40 that night.
I was already packing.
Not much.
Clothes.
Laptop.
My mother’s jewelry.
The framed photograph of my younger brother that had been sitting beside our fireplace for ten years.
Grant stopped in the bedroom doorway.
“You’re leaving.”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
He sounded genuinely surprised.
That almost offended me.
“Where?”
“Not your concern.”
“Claire.”
“Grant.”
He flinched at the tone.
No nickname.
No softness.
Just his name.
He walked inside.
“We need to talk about the trust.”
I laughed.
“Of course we do.”
“This affects thousands of employees.”
“You didn’t think of them when you proposed to someone else while still married.”
“That is separate.”
“No. It’s convenient that you think everything damaging you do belongs in separate boxes.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he said:
“If you file final judgment before October eighteenth, the control clause triggers.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Your father gave me a copy.”
Grant went still.
That surprised him.
His father, William Cross, had died four years earlier.
Before he died, he had called me into his hospital room.
Grant had not been there.
William gave me a sealed envelope and said:
If my son ever forgets the difference between inheritance and entitlement, open this.
I had opened it three days ago.
Inside was the full trust agreement.
Not the edited summary Grant had shown me after our wedding.
Grant sat on the edge of the bed.
“What else did he give you?”
I looked at him.
“So there is something else.”
His face changed.
That was enough.
I stopped packing.
“What did your father hide from you?”
“Nothing.”
“Bad answer.”
“Claire.”
“Did he leave me something besides shares?”
Grant looked away.
My heart started pounding.
Then he whispered:
“Voting control.”
Silence.
“Explain.”
“If the marriage lasts fourteen years, you receive forty-nine percent.”
“Yes.”
“If the marriage ends because of documented adultery before the vesting date…”
My breath caught.
“What?”
“You receive temporary voting control over my shares too.”
I stared.
“How temporary?”
“Five years.”
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because William Cross had apparently known his son exceptionally well.
“So if I prove you cheated, I control the company?”
“Board decisions.”
“For five years.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew this?”
“Not until last year.”
That timing mattered.
“Last year?”
Grant said nothing.
My stomach dropped.
“When did the affair start?”
His silence answered.
About a year ago.
Of course.
“You found out the trust punished adultery, and then you began hiding everything more carefully.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
His voice broke.
“I tried to end it.”
“With Savannah?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Grant looked toward the floor.
“Because she had something on me.”
Here we go again.
“What?”
He hesitated.
Then:
“Proof that I caused my father’s death.”
I stopped breathing.
William Cross had died after complications from surgery.
At least that was what everyone believed.
Grant looked at me.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Then why would she have proof?”
May you like
His face tightened.
“Because I was the one who changed his medication.”
