Chapter 10 - Before the Wedding
Harrison sat down so suddenly the chair scraped across the floor.
“Before we got married?”
Sloan nodded.
Eleanor had never seen her son look at anyone that way. Not with rage. With disbelief.
Sloan started speaking fast.
“My father told me there had been a fight. He said Thomas threatened to destroy him over an accounting dispute. He said Thomas had chest pain and refused help because he was stubborn. He said by the time he realized how serious it was, Thomas was already walking back to the house.”
“You knew Dad collapsed after fighting with your father,” Harrison said.
“Yes.”
“And you married me six months later.”
“I loved you.”
Grant laughed once, bitterly.
Sloan spun toward him. “You don’t get to judge me. You disappeared.”
“I disappeared because your father framed me.”
“My father protected hundreds of employees from a scandal.”
“He protected himself.”
Eleanor stepped between them.
“Enough.”
She turned to Sloan.
“Why the watch?”
Sloan’s face hardened again.
“What?”
“The auction. The appraisal. The forged signature. Why?”
For the first time all night, Sloan looked ashamed.
“My father has debts.”
Daniel narrowed his eyes. “What kind?”
“Business loans. Personal guarantees. He used the Caldwell relationship to keep lenders calm. When Grant started asking questions again this summer, Dad panicked.”
Harrison stood. “So you stole from my mother to save him?”
“I was going to replace everything.”
“That’s what your father said about twelve million dollars.”
Sloan flinched.
Harrison took off his wedding ring.
She stared at it.
“Harrison, don’t.”
He placed it on the desk beside the forged seller authorization.
“I don’t know who you are.”
Sloan’s chin trembled.
Then she looked at Eleanor.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Eleanor’s voice was quiet. “No.”
“You hated me from the beginning.”
“I didn’t know you from the beginning.”
Sloan pointed toward the patio. “You burned my bag in front of everyone.”
“And you crushed a cake made from my dead husband’s recipe because you wanted to humiliate me.”
Sloan opened her mouth, then stopped.
Eleanor watched the realization hit her.
The cake had not started the war.
It had only exposed one that was already happening.
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and looked at Eleanor.
“That was the bank,” he said. “Someone just requested emergency access to box B-214.”
“Who?”
May you like
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“Richard Mercer.”
