“What career?” I asked mildly.

Grant smiled again.

“Chief operating officer. The promotion becomes official tomorrow.”

“Of Mercer Dynamics?”

“You’ve heard of us?”

I looked at Claire. Tears had filled her eyes.

“Yes,” I said. “I have.”

What Grant did not know was that Mercer Dynamics still existed because my late husband and I had saved it from bankruptcy twenty-two years earlier. Our family trust still controlled thirty-eight percent of the company’s voting shares.

And I was the only trustee.

PART 2

Grant mistook my silence for weakness.

“Claire has been unstable for months,” he said. “She checks my calls, questions my spending, embarrasses me.”

Claire stared at him.

“I found invoices.”

His jaw tightened.

“What invoices?” I asked.

“Consulting payments,” Claire said. “Companies that don’t exist. Grant told me to delete the files.”

Evelyn snapped, “A wife has no business digging through her husband’s work.”

Grant reached across the table and pressed his hand against Claire’s injured shoulder.

She gasped.

I caught his wrist.

Not hard.

I didn’t need to.

“Remove your hand.”

He looked amused.