Chapter 2

Eleanor called the next morning.

“Children play rough,” she said. “Lily will heal. There’s no sense turning one accident into a public spectacle.”

“She needed surgery.”

“And she received it. Mia is raising that boy alone. Imagine how it would look if a company as prominent as ours crushed a single mother over a playground mishap.”

Ours. Eleanor always used that word when she meant something that belonged to me.

“I asked Blake to sign the release because someone had to think of the family’s reputation,” she went on. “Taking the loss may hurt now, but it pays in the end.”

Then her voice changed, just slightly.

“Blake tells me Sullivan is under pressure. You’re his wife. You should support him. Those shares aren’t doing anyone any good sitting in your name.”

The door to Lily’s room opened. Blake walked in carrying a leather folder and wearing the exhausted expression he used when he wanted credit for work he had not done.

Eleanor said, “Is that Blake? He’s been carrying this family by himself for months.”

I put the call on speaker. “Are you asking me to sell my shares and put the money into the company?”

“Not sell,” Eleanor corrected. “Temporarily transfer. Once the company stabilizes, the family will remember what you did.”

Blake placed the folder on my lap. “I already found an investor. The price is below market, but it solves the immediate problem.”

He glanced at Lily’s sleeping face. “We can’t risk interrupting her treatment.”

I opened the folder. The proposed price for my shares was insulting.

“You’re both right,” I said. “A little loss now, a bigger blessing later.”

They relaxed too soon.

“So why don’t we start with the Carter family home in Vermont? Eleanor, you could take out a mortgage. We’re all supposed to make sacrifices together, aren’t we?”

Blake’s face hardened.

The silence on the speaker lasted three full seconds.

“You ungrateful girl,” Eleanor said, and ended the call.

Blake grabbed the folder and walked out.

I followed him as far as the door, then stopped when I heard him talking in the hall.

“If she didn’t own the company, I’d have thrown her and the kid out years ago,” he hissed into his phone. “The shares are the only thing that matters. Once Mia has them, she’ll do what she’s told. Her son can inherit the business someday, and it will finally belong to the Carters.”

I stepped back before he saw me.

So Mia was not the love of his life. She was simply easier to control.

And Lily and I were obstacles between him and the company.

For years, they had asked me to swallow every insult in the name of peace. Now I intended to account for every one of them.