Chapter 1 - The Woman on the Marble Floor
“Get out!” Vanessa Whitmore shouted.
Her white silk gown shimmered beneath the Solmere Hotel’s crystal chandeliers as she yanked Charlotte Vale across the lobby floor by the arm.
Charlotte’s shoulder struck the marble.
Pain shot through her body.
Her palms scraped against the polished stone, leaving faint streaks of blood where thousands of wealthy guests had walked without ever looking down.
A bellman near the entrance took one step forward.
Then stopped.
The hotel manager, Gregory Hale, stood behind the reception desk with his hands folded tightly in front of him.
He did not intervene.
Neither did the security guards.
Neither did the guests filming the scene with phones held low, pretending they were too refined to stare.
Vanessa looked down at Charlotte with disgust.
“You think you can wander in here dressed like that and touch things that do not belong to you?”
Charlotte pressed one trembling hand over the bruise on her cheek.
The bruise had not come from Vanessa.
Not originally.
It came from the car accident three nights earlier—the accident that had supposedly happened because her brakes failed while driving home from her mother’s memorial dinner.
But Charlotte knew brakes did not fail that neatly.
Not after she found the maintenance report hidden inside her mother’s private desk.
Not after she discovered someone had altered the estate’s financial records.
Not after a black SUV followed her for six blocks through the rain.
She had entered the Solmere Hotel in a tank top, jeans, and worn boots because she did not want anyone to recognize her.
She needed answers.
Instead, she found Vanessa Whitmore.
Vanessa was the girlfriend of Julian Cross, the acting chief executive of Vale Hospitality Group. She was famous for charity galas, fashion columns, and smiling beside men with money.
She was also one of the people Charlotte had seen named repeatedly in the documents her mother left behind.
The documents proving that someone had been stealing from the Solmere Empire.
“Say something,” Vanessa demanded.
Charlotte slowly lifted her eyes.
“You should let go of me.”
Vanessa laughed.
The sound was sharp enough to make several guests shift uncomfortably.
“Or what?”
Charlotte’s voice remained quiet.
“Or you will regret it.”
Vanessa’s smile widened.
“You are threatening me?”
“No,” Charlotte said. “I am warning you.”
That made Vanessa furious.
She grabbed Charlotte’s tank top near the collar and pulled her upward.
“You poor little thing,” Vanessa whispered. “You have no idea who I am.”
Charlotte met her gaze.
“No,” she replied. “You have no idea who I am.”
At that moment, the main lobby doors opened.
A man in a charcoal suit stepped inside, followed by two attorneys and an older woman with silver hair.
The woman stopped the moment she saw Charlotte on the floor.
Her face went white.
“Charlotte?”
The lobby fell silent.
Vanessa released her.
Charlotte rose slowly, using the edge of a marble column to steady herself.
Her palms were bleeding.
Her shirt was torn.
But her back was straight.
The older woman rushed toward her.
“Miss Vale,” she whispered. “What happened?”
Every person in the lobby heard the name.
Miss Vale.
Gregory Hale’s face drained of color.
Vanessa blinked.
“What did you call her?”
The older woman turned toward Vanessa.
Her voice changed.
“This is Charlotte Vale.”
No one moved.
Then the attorney beside her opened a leather folder.
“Charlotte Vale is the sole legal heir to the Vale estate,” he announced. “Under the revised trust documents filed this morning, she is also the majority owner and chairwoman of Vale Hospitality Group.”
His eyes moved toward the ceiling.
“The Solmere Hotel belongs to her.”
Vanessa stared at Charlotte.
Then at the marble floor.
Then at the guests around her.
The guests who had watched her drag the hotel’s owner through her own lobby.
“I didn’t know,” Vanessa whispered.
May you like
Charlotte looked down at her scraped hands.
“That was never the problem.”
