Chapter 10 - The Story They Sold

By morning, Emma had a new diagnosis: gestational hypertension.

By noon, she had a new problem.

Her face was on the internet.

Mara stormed into the hospital room holding her phone.

"Do not read the comments."

"That's never a good opening sentence."

The headline on a business gossip site read:

WHITMORE HEIRESS FLEES MARRIAGE WHILE PREGNANT; SOURCES CITE "EMOTIONAL INSTABILITY."

Emma's stomach turned.

"They know I'm pregnant," Emma whispered.

Mara's face tightened. "And they know about the hospital."

Only a handful of people knew.

Nathan.

Eleanor.

Mara.

Dr. Shah.

Emma's attorney.

And Olivia had once run communications for the foundation.

Nathan saw the article ten minutes later.

He called an emergency meeting.

"Find the source."

Aaron hesitated. "PR recommends no comment."

"No. We comment."

"Nathan, that could confirm the pregnancy."

"The pregnancy is already out. What I will not allow is anyone calling my wife unstable because she left me."

By three o'clock, Whitmore Global issued a statement approved by Emma's attorney before release.

Emma Whitmore's private medical information was disclosed without her consent. Any suggestion that she acted irrationally in leaving New York is false. Nathan Whitmore takes full responsibility for conduct that caused serious harm to their marriage and asks the press to respect Emma's privacy.

The board hated it.

Nathan did not care.

Then he went on camera alone.

A reporter shouted, "Did your wife leave because you had an affair with Olivia Grant?"

Nathan could have said no.

Technically, he believed that was true.

Instead he said, "My wife left because I repeatedly chose work and emotional closeness with another woman over the person I promised to put first. Call it whatever word you want. I failed her."

The clip spread everywhere.

Emma watched from her hospital bed.

She did not forgive him.

But she believed him.

That was new.

An hour later, Nathan's security chief entered his office with a printed access log.

"We found the leak path."

Nathan looked up.

"Olivia?"

"Partly. She received Emma's medical appointment information from someone using a family-office credential."

"Whose credential?"

The chief placed the paper on Nathan's desk.

Nathan read the name.

Then looked up in disbelief.

"My father?"

"His old credentials were never deactivated after he died."

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Nathan stared at the screen.

Someone inside his own family office had been using a dead man's access.