Chapter 4 - The Push of a Button
So, while they discussed where I would be banished to live, how much meager support I would be allowed to receive, and how politely I should disappear into the night to make room for Sloane, my right hand slipped off my pregnant belly and moved beneath the heavy mahogany table.
My phone was resting against my thigh. I didn't need to look at the screen. My thumb found the custom application my attorney had installed.
I pressed one single button.
Send.
An encrypted package containing thousands of pages of irrefutable, un-shreddable evidence of federal tax evasion, wire fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering shot through cyberspace directly to the FBI, the SEC, and the IRS.
Adrian saw no glowing screen. He saw no dramatic gesture. He saw no paperwork. He only saw me sitting perfectly upright in my chair, staring directly into his soul with that terrifying, radiant smile.
"What did you just do?" Adrian demanded, his voice suddenly losing its booming confidence. The chair scraped violently against the imported marble floor as he stood up, his body rigid with an animalistic sense of incoming danger.
I ignored his question. I calmly reached down, picked up my designer purse, and stood up from the table. I rested one hand protectively over my stomach.
"You know, Adrian," I said, my voice echoing clearly through the dead-silent dining room, "our daughter has absolutely excellent timing. She is going to be born into a very clean, very peaceful house."
Conrad slammed his fist onto the table, the silverware rattling against the china. "Sit down immediately!" he roared, dropping the sophisticated patriarch act. "I will not tolerate you creating a spectacle in front of our guests!"
I turned my head and looked directly at the glowing Christmas tree in the ballroom, pointing a manicured finger at the new piece of gold hanging from the branches. "The spectacle was arranged long before I ever walked down the stairs tonight, Conrad. Isn't that right, Sloane?"
Adrian followed my eyes to the tree. He saw the ornament. He looked at his mother, who suddenly looked nauseous, and then back to me. Suddenly, the billionaire heir realized that I had known everything. I knew about the affair. I knew about the setup. I knew the public humiliation had been a premeditated execution.
"Sit down," Adrian commanded, stepping toward me, his face flushing with panicked rage. "Do not do this. Think about the baby before you do something reckless!"
The entire room was paralyzed. Adrian Vale was accustomed to everyone bowing to his demands. Employees, politicians, board members, hotel managers, and his wife—we were all supposed to obey.
"No," I said simply. It was a complete sentence. "And I have been thinking about her for months, Adrian."
That specific answer stopped him dead in his tracks. The color drained completely from his face, leaving him looking like a ghost in a tailored suit. Because the affair with Sloane, at least the physical part of it, was only eleven weeks old. That was the timeline he thought he was hiding.
"Months?" Adrian whispered, his eyes darting frantically around the room. "What do you mean, months?"
Instead of explaining it to the man who had just broken my heart, I turned my attention to the head of the table. Conrad Vale had finally lost the untouchable, arrogant expression he had worn all evening. He was staring at me, his chest heaving, his brilliant, corrupt mind racing to calculate exactly what a woman plotting for months could have possibly uncovered.
May you like
"Ask your father," I said softly, the silence in the room amplifying my words like a gunshot.
And for the very first time in all the years I had known the great, untouchable Conrad Vale, he looked absolutely, genuinely terrified.
