Chapter 47
I called Marcus back.
The phone rang twice before he picked up. No greeting, just breathing on the other end of the line.
"Where?" I said.
"The Ashford building. Thirty minutes. My office." His voice was silk over steel. "Come alone, Ms. Whitley. This is a family matter."
"I'm not family."
"No, yeah. That's where you're wrong." He hung up.
I stood in Dominic's empty bedroom, my reflection fractured in the windows overlooking the city. Twenty-three days had become a countdown to something I couldn't name. The inheritance. The company. Marcus knowing everything while I knew nothing about what he wanted.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number: The photos Patricia has are just the beginning. Come talk. Or I'll make sure everyone sees what your mother really was.
The nail polish on my thumb cracked as I gripped the phone. Catherine. He was threatening Catherine.
I grabbed my jacket and left.
The Ashford Industries building rose like a glass monument to everything I'd never be. I'd been here before, but always through the service entrance, always with my cleaning cart, always invisible. Now the security guard at the front desk looked at me like I was a problem he hadn't been trained to solve.
"Sloane Whitley," I said. "Marcus Ashford is expecting me."
He made a call. Nodded. Handed me a visitor badge that felt like a collar.
The elevator to the executive floor was different from the ones I'd used before. Faster. Quieter. The kind of smooth that cost more than my mother's annual salary. My reflection in the polished doors showed someone who didn't belong—freckles, chipped black nail polish, a leather jacket that had seen better years.
The sparrow on my wrist seemed to flutter as I pressed my thumb against it.
The doors opened onto a hallway that smelled like money. Real hardwood, not laminate. Art that wasn't prints. A receptionist who looked like she'd been hired for her ability to make people feel small.
"Ms. Whitley." She didn't smile. "Mr. Ashford is waiting."
Marcus's office was at the end of the hall. Corner suite. Windows on two sides. The door was open.
He sat behind a desk that could have doubled as a landing strip, reading something on his tablet. He didn't look up when I walked in.
"Close the door," he said.
I left it open.
He glanced up then. Smiled. "Defiant. I can see why my brother was drawn to you."
"What do you want, Marcus?"
"Please. Sit." He gestured to the chair across from him. Leather. Expensive. Lower than his chair, I noticed. A power play so obvious it was almost insulting.
I stayed standing.
"The photos," I said. "What are you talking about?"
"Patricia Keene has been very thorough in documenting your mother's relationship with Richard." Marcus set down his tablet. Folded his hands. "The affair. The pregnancy. The money he sent over the years. All of it carefully catalogued and dated. She was Richard's assistant for thirty years. She knows where every body is buried."
My nails dug into my palms. "So?"
"So those photos tell a story. A story about a woman who seduced a married man for financial gain. Who trapped him with a pregnancy. Who spent decades extracting money from him while his legitimate family suffered." He paused. "That's one version, anyway."
"That's bullshit."
"Is it?" Marcus stood. Walked to the windows. "The truth is subjective, Ms. Whitley. What matters is which version the public believes. Which version the board believes. Which version Dominic believes."
There it was. The threat underneath the silk.
"You want me to refuse the inheritance," I said.
"I want you to make the right choice. For everyone involved." He turned to face me. "Let's be practical. You're twenty-four years old. You have no business experience. No education beyond community college. No connections. No understanding of how to run a company worth billions. Richard's decision to leave you controlling interest was the delusion of a dying man trying to atone for his sins."
"That tracks," I said. My voice came out flat.
"You could walk away. Refuse the inheritance. Let the company pass to Dominic as it should have from the beginning. In return, I'll make sure those photos never see the light of day. Your mother's reputation stays intact. You get a generous settlement—enough to live comfortably for the rest of your life. Everyone wins."
"Except Richard wanted me to have it."
"Richard was a sentimental fool at the end." Marcus's voice went quieter. Colder. "He romanticized his relationship with your mother. Convinced himself it was some great love story instead of what it actually was—a middle-aged man's midlife crisis. You were the evidence of his weakness. His shame. And now you're his revenge."
I moved toward the door. "We're done here."
"Sloane." He didn't raise his voice. Didn't need to. "If you accept that inheritance, I will destroy you. I will make sure every board member knows exactly who you are and where you came from. I will leak those photos to every media outlet in the city. I will paint your mother as a gold-digger and you as her opportunistic daughter. And when the company's stock tanks because the shareholders have no confidence in Richard's bastard daughter, I will buy up enough shares to take control anyway."
"Then why offer me the deal?"
"Because I'd prefer to avoid the mess. Because despite everything, you're still Dominic's—" He stopped. Reconsidered. "You matter to him. And I don't want to hurt my brother more than necessary."
The lie was so smooth I almost believed it.
"I need time," I said.
"You have twenty-three days. But every day you wait, I get more impatient. And when I'm impatient, I make mistakes. Like accidentally sending those photos to the wrong email address." He smiled. "Think about it, Ms. Whitley. Think about what you really want. And what you're willing to sacrifice to get it."
I left without answering.
The apartment was dark when I got home. Catherine was working a double shift at the diner. I sat on the couch in the living room where I'd grown up, surrounded by furniture held together with hope and duct tape, and pulled out my phone.
Dominic's number was still in my favorites. My thumb hovered over it.
He'd left. Walked out. Told me we were done.
But Marcus's threat changed things. If those photos went public, it wouldn't just destroy me. It would destroy Catherine. Everything she'd worked for, every sacrifice she'd made, reduced to a tabloid headline about the mistress who trapped a billionaire.
I needed to warn Dominic. Needed to tell him what Marcus was planning.
Needed to hear his voice, even if he hated me.
I called.
It rang four times. Five. I was about to hang up when he answered.
"Sloane." His voice was careful. Distant. The way you'd talk to a stranger.
"I—" My throat closed. "I need to talk to you."
Silence. Then: "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Marcus knows. About the will. About everything. He threatened me today. Said he'd leak photos of my mom and Richard if I don't refuse the inheritance."
More silence. Longer this time.
"Dominic?"
"Where are you?"
"Home."
"Stay there. I'm coming over."
"You don't have to—"
But he'd already hung up.
I sat in the dark and waited. Picked at the chipped polish on my nails. Traced the sparrow on my wrist. Tried not to think about the last time Dominic had been here, in this apartment, when everything between us had still been possible.
Twenty minutes later, someone knocked.
I opened the door.
Dominic stood in the hallway, still wearing his suit from earlier. His tie was gone. Top button undone. He looked like he hadn't slept.
"Can I come in?"
I stepped aside.
He walked past me into the living room. Looked around like he was seeing it for the first time. Maybe he was. Maybe when he'd been here before, he'd been too focused on me to notice the water stain on the ceiling, the mismatched furniture, the way everything screamed temporary.
"Tell me what Marcus said." He didn't sit. Didn't take off his coat.
So I told him. The phone call. The meeting. The threats about the photos. Marcus's offer to make it all go away if I refused the inheritance.
Dominic listened without interrupting. His face gave nothing away.
When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
"He's bluffing," he said finally.
"What?"
"Marcus doesn't have the photos. Patricia does. And Patricia wouldn't give them to him without leverage." He turned to look at me. "She's playing both sides. Waiting to see who offers her the better deal."
"How do you know?"
"Because that's what she does. She's been Richard's fixer for thirty years. She knows where every secret is buried, and she's spent decades making herself indispensable by never fully committing to anyone." He paused. "Marcus is trying to scare you into making a decision before you're ready."
"It's working," I said.
Something flickered across his face. Not quite sympathy. Not quite anger.
"You should refuse it," he said. "The inheritance. You should walk away."
My stomach dropped. "That's what you want?"
"That's what's best. For you. For the company. For—" He stopped. "You don't want this, Sloane. You never wanted any of it. You wanted a normal life. A degree. A career that was yours. This inheritance is a trap. It will consume you. Destroy you. Turn you into someone you don't recognize."
"Like it did to you?"
His mouth went flat. "Yes."
"And if I refuse it, what happens? Marcus takes over? Runs the company the way he wants? Destroys everything Richard built?"
"Richard built a company on the backs of people like your mother. People he used and discarded. People who were never good enough to be part of his real family." Dominic's voice was sharp now. Cutting. "You think accepting his inheritance makes you his daughter? It doesn't. It makes you his pawn. His final manipulation. His way of controlling us all from beyond the grave."
"So I should just let Marcus win?"
"I should let Marcus win. This is my fight. My family. My company." He moved closer. "You don't owe Richard anything. You don't owe me anything. Walk away, Sloane. Take the settlement Marcus offered. Live your life."
"Without you."
The words hung between us.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Without me."
I turned away. Walked to the window. The view from here was nothing like the view from his penthouse. Just other buildings. Other lives. Other people trying to survive.
"I lied to you," I said. "About the inheritance. I knew about it for weeks and I didn't tell you. I let you think we were partners when really I was just—" I stopped. "You have every right to hate me."
"I don't hate you."
"Then what?"
"I don't know." His voice cracked. Just slightly. Just enough. "I don't know what I feel. I thought I knew you. Thought I understood what we were building together. And then I found out you'd been keeping this secret. This massive, life-altering secret. And I realized I didn't know you at all."
I faced him. "You knew me. You know me. The inheritance doesn't change who I am."
"Doesn't it?" He looked at me like I was a stranger. "You made a choice, Sloane. You chose to keep that secret. You chose to let me fall in love with you while hiding something that affected both of our futures. That's not the person I thought you were."
"The person you thought I was doesn't exist." The words came out harsh. True. "You wanted someone who was honest and straightforward and uncomplicated. Someone who wasn't damaged by their past. Someone who could be your partner without bringing all their baggage and trauma and fucked-up family history into it. But that's not me. That was never me."
"I know that now."
It shouldn't have hurt. I'd already lost him. But hearing him say it—hearing him confirm that I'd been right all along, that I wasn't good enough, that I'd never been what he needed—
My nails cut crescents into my palms.
"You should go," I said.
"Sloane—"
"Just go. Please."
He didn't move. Didn't leave. Just stood there looking at me like he was trying to memorize something he knew he'd forget.
"If you accept the inheritance," he said finally, "Marcus will come after you with everything he has. He'll use those photos. He'll turn the board against you. He'll make your life hell. And I won't be able to protect you."
"I don't need you to protect me."
"I know. But I want to anyway." He moved toward the door. Stopped. "For what it's worth, I think Richard was right. I think you'd be good at this. Better than me. Better than Marcus. You see things we don't. You understand people in a way we never learned. You could actually make the company into something that matters."
"But?"
"But it will cost you everything. Your privacy. Your freedom. Your chance at a normal life. And I don't know if any company is worth that price."
He left before I could answer.
I stood alone in my apartment, in the dark, and felt the weight of twenty-three days pressing down on me.
My phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number. A photo.
Catherine, young and smiling, her hand on her pregnant belly. Richard beside her, his arm around her shoulders. Both of them looking at the camera like they had a future.
Below the photo: Tick tock, Ms. Whitley. Twenty-three days and counting. Make the right choice.
I was still staring at the screen when I heard footsteps in the hallway outside. Heavy. Unfamiliar. Not Catherine coming home from her shift.
The doorknob turned.
I hadn't locked it after Dominic left.
The door swung open and Patricia Keene walked into my apartment, a manila envelope in her hands and a smile on her face that made my blood run cold.
"Hello, Sloane," she said. "I think it's time we had a conversation about what your father really wanted. And what I'm willing to do to make sure you don't get it."