Chapter 3 - The Counterfeit
I looked past my cheating husband. I looked past the woman I had called my sister for over a decade.
I looked directly at the glowing projector screen behind them.
Permanent Assignment of Formula Portfolio.
"A vision," I repeated. I walked slowly down the center aisle, my low heels clicking against the stone floor. The investors parted for me like the Red Sea. "Is that what we're calling federal fraud now?"
Ethan stopped breathing. "Keep your voice down, Marina. The assignment was a formality. Northstar required the IP to be consolidated under the corporate umbrella before they finalize the eighty-million-dollar acquisition tomorrow. You're my wife. Marital property laws dictate—"
"I wrote those formulas before we were married, Ethan," I interrupted, my voice echoing with a lethal, icy authority. "In my mother's workshop. They are my sole intellectual property. And I would never sign them over to a man who uses my vows to bed my best friend."
I stopped a few feet from the projector, looking up at the perfect, blue-ink forgery of my signature.
"Who signed it?" I asked the room. "Was it you, Ethan? Or did Brooke practice my handwriting the way she practiced wearing my vows?"
Brooke paled, taking a step back into the orange trees.
"It's a ceremonial document, Marina," Ethan hissed, finally losing his composure, stepping close enough that I could smell the fear sweating through his cologne. "It doesn't matter. The real paperwork is already with Northstar's legal team. We own the lab. We own the formulas. I will give you a generous divorce settlement, but if you make a scene right now and ruin this acquisition, I will bury you in litigation until you can't afford to buy a beaker."
He thought he was being ruthless.
He thought he had outsmarted the quiet, barefoot chemist.
May you like
I looked at the front row. Sitting in the center chair was Julian Vance, the senior acquisitions director for Northstar Luxury Partners.
"Julian," I said smoothly, ignoring my husband entirely. "Could you please clarify for Ethan exactly what Northstar is acquiring tomorrow?"
