Chapter 14 - THE BROTHER WHO CAME BACK FOR PRESTON
Parker had not escaped.
The man entering Preston’s hotel only looked like him.
The answer was almost funny.
Almost.
Preston wore Parker’s clothes and left disguised as his brother.
He had staged his own disappearance.
Why?
Naomi found the letter in his hotel safe.
Addressed to me.
Vivian, I cannot undo what I did to you. But I can stop Parker from hurting anyone else.
I wanted to scream.
Men in my life had an exhausting habit of deciding dangerous sacrifices were nobler than asking for help.
Preston knew Parker had arranged for evidence to be destroyed from inside detention through an outside associate.
Preston planned to identify that person himself.
Without police.
Without Gideon.
Without me.
“Idiot,” I whispered.
Gideon looked at the letter.
“Agreed.”
We turned everything over to investigators.
Preston’s phone pinged near an old marina in Queens.
Law enforcement found him before midnight.
Alive.
Bruised.
But alive.
He had met Parker’s associate.
The associate was Richard Mills, Preston’s former attorney.
Mills had helped forge my equity waiver, the life-insurance documents, and several Barrett transactions.
He was arrested.
The evidence he carried completed the financial case against Parker.
For the first time, the entire structure was visible.
Charles Ashford had stolen my father’s intellectual property.
Parker exploited the stolen system.
Parker started the fire to hide his theft and kill witnesses.
Preston covered for his brother out of fear, then became corrupt in his own right.
Cassidy manipulated both men while protecting secrets inherited from her mother.
And I had spent five years believing the only ugly thing in the story was my back.
That realization made me cry.
Not with sadness.
With fury.
The final divorce hearing happened two months later.
Preston stood across from me.
He looked older.
He had lost his executive position.
His ownership claims were frozen pending fraud proceedings.
Cassidy was gone from his life.
Parker awaited trial.
“I’m sorry,” Preston said outside the courtroom.
“I know.”
“I loved you.”
I looked at him.
“You loved the version of me that made your life easier.”
He flinched.
“I saved you from that fire, Preston.”
“I know.”
“And afterward you punished me for looking like someone who survived.”
His eyes filled.
“I hated myself every time I looked at your scars.”
“So you taught me to hate them instead.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
There was nothing left to say.
The divorce became final at 2:36 P.M.
I walked out of the courthouse as Vivian Reed again.
Not Barrett.
Reed.
Naomi hugged me.
My mother cried.
Reporters waited outside.
Gideon remained across the street.
He had not come closer because I asked him not to turn my divorce into a romance story.
When the reporters finally left, I crossed to him.
“It’s done.”
“How do you feel?”
“Hungry.”
That startled him.
“Hungry?”
“I skipped lunch.”
He laughed.
We ate burgers in a tiny diner.
No champagne.
No gala.
No billion-dollar view.
At the end of dinner, Gideon asked:
“Do you still work for me?”
“I resigned this morning.”
He froze.
“What?”
“My settlement from the patent case means I don’t need the job.”
“That wasn’t why you had the job.”
“I know.”
“Then why resign?”
I smiled.
“Because now you can ask me on a date without an HR department having a nervous breakdown.”
For perhaps the first time since I met him, Gideon Ashford looked speechless.
Then he asked carefully:
“Vivian Reed, would you have dinner with me tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
His smile changed his entire face.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from Naomi.
The final forensic valuation of my father’s patents had arrived.
I opened the document.
My family’s settlement, including recovered royalties and damages, was worth more than nine hundred million dollars.
I stared.
Gideon read the number.
Then looked at me.
“Well.”
I laughed.
“What?”
“There goes my one advantage.”
“Your money?”
“Yes.”
I put my phone down.
“You never had that advantage.”
His smile softened.
May you like
That night, for the first time in five years, I went home without a husband.
And I had never felt less alone.
