Chapter 3 - The Necklace
Brielle stood up, her face a mask of sheer, unadulterated terror. The smug confidence she had worn when she claimed my chair was completely eradicated. She looked at the weeping, hyperventilating man beside her and realized she had hitched her wagon to a penniless felon.
"You told me you were wealthy!" Brielle shrieked, backing away from Grant as if he were contagious. "You told me the trust was yours! You told me my baby was going to grow up in that estate!"
"Your baby is going to grow up wherever you can afford to pay rent, Brielle," I said, my voice dropping to a freezing, lethal temperature.
I stood up and walked slowly around the dining table until I was standing directly in front of her. She shrank back, her eyes wide with fear.
"Take the necklace off," I commanded.
Brielle’s hand flew to her throat, her fingers frantically clutching the dazzling diamond necklace Grant’s mother had given me on my wedding day. "No! Grant gave this to me! It was a gift for the baby!"
"Grant gave you stolen property," I corrected her, stepping into her personal space. "That necklace is an insured asset of the family trust. You have exactly five seconds to unfasten it, or I will have the private security detail waiting outside this room strip it from your neck and arrest you for grand larceny."
Brielle looked at Grant, desperately waiting for him to intervene, to protect her, to assert his dominance. But Grant was staring blankly at the legal documents on the table, paralyzed by the horrific magnitude of his own destruction.
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Trembling violently, tears of humiliated panic spilling down her cheeks, Brielle reached behind her neck and unclasped the diamonds. She dropped the necklace into my open palm.
"Now," I said, looking at both of them. "Get out of my dining room."
