Chapter 8 - WHAT CHLOE REALLY WANTED
Chloe called me that night.
Not Ethan.
Me.
“I want to talk.”
“Your attorneys can speak to mine.”
“I’m not calling about the investigation.”
“Then why?”
“Because Margaret lied to me too.”
We met in a private room at Helen’s law firm.
No dramatic hotel suite.
No secret parking garage.
Two attorneys present.
One recorder visible on the table.
Chloe looked different without Sterling around her.
Less polished.
More tired.
“I hated you,” she said.
“I noticed.”
“You had everything my father lost.”
“That wasn’t my doing.”
“I know that now.”
She told me Margaret approached her two years earlier.
Margaret knew exactly who she was.
Instead of rejecting her, she encouraged her.
Hired her.
Put her near Ethan.
Fed her documents suggesting Ethan’s father knowingly framed Martin Vale.
“Did she tell you to seduce him?”
Chloe looked ashamed.
“She said Ethan trusted women who made him feel admired.”
That sounded unpleasantly accurate.
“You kissed him.”
“Yes.”
“Were you trying to sleep with him?”
Chloe looked at me.
“Yes.”
At least she did not insult me with another lie.
“Why?”
“To get closer.”
“And because you enjoyed humiliating me?”
Her eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
I appreciated the truth.
I did not forgive it.
“Did Ethan promise you anything?”
“No.”
“Did he say he would leave me?”
“No.”
“Did he kiss you back?”
“Yes.”
Pain still moved through me.
Less sharply now.
Facts become easier to survive once they stop changing shape.
“What happened afterward?”
“He told me it could never happen again.”
“Then why were you in my seat?”
Chloe gave a bitter smile.
“Because I wanted you to see it.”
There.
The jet had been intentional.
Not Ethan’s plan.
Hers.
Margaret had encouraged it.
Humiliate Clara.
Make Clara angry.
Make Ethan defensive.
Create enough personal chaos that no one noticed the corporate transfers.
“And the forged signature?”
Chloe’s face tightened.
“Margaret told me Clara had already verbally approved the restructuring but refused to sign because she wanted leverage in the marriage.”
“You believed that?”
“I wanted to.”
Fair.
Then Chloe pushed an encrypted drive across the table.
“This contains every message Margaret sent me.”
Helen took it.
“Why give it to Clara?”
“Because I learned what she did to my father.”
Chloe’s eyes filled.
“Margaret made me help the woman who destroyed him.”
For the first time, I felt something for her other than anger.
Not sympathy exactly.
Recognition.
Manipulated people can still be responsible for the harm they choose.
Both things can be true.
“There’s more,” Chloe said.
“Of course there is.”
She almost smiled.
“Northstar wasn’t just meant to acquire Sterling technology.”
“What else?”
“Your family patents.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not if Sterling triggered the buyout provision in the licensing agreement.”
I looked at Helen.
She had gone still.
“What provision?”
A rarely used clause allowed Sterling to offer to purchase permanent rights if the company experienced a qualifying ownership event.
Margaret planned to manufacture that event through the recapitalization.
Then use my forged consent to sell the patents to Northstar at a valuation calculated before Sterling’s recovery.
A fraction of their current worth.
“How much?”
Helen whispered the number.
“Potentially nine billion dollars.”
May you like
This had never been about saving Sterling from my influence.
Margaret intended to steal the foundation beneath both family fortunes.
