Chapter 2
Nathan didn’t answer.
Margaret repeated the question.
His silence became an answer.
I reached into the box again.
“There’s one more part of the gift.”
Nathan stared at me.
A board agenda.
Tomorrow morning, 9:00 a.m.
Item four proposed terminating me as chief strategy officer for obstructing Nathan’s planned sale of our oncology platform.
Item five authorized negotiations with a buyer partly financed by one of Nathan’s college friends.
I held it up.
“You planned to marry Laya today, secure permanent voting control, and fire me tomorrow.”
Guests gasped.
Eleanor turned slowly toward her son.
“Nathan?”
He looked at me instead.
“You had no right to see that.”
“That’s your defense?”
“You accessed confidential board material.”
“It was accidentally routed to a printer assigned to my department. Outside counsel already has the original.”
Nathan’s voice rose.
“You’ve blocked me for a year.”
“I blocked one sale because it was worth hundreds of millions less than our contracted milestones.”
“You made every decision impossible.”
“No. I made some decisions require evidence.”
He stepped close enough that I could see a pulse beating in his neck.
“You couldn’t stand that I chose someone else.”
Nine years of memories hit me at once.
The first apartment in Cambridge.
The broken radiator.
His hospital bracelet after a cancer scan.
My mother laughing when Nathan burned Thanksgiving stuffing.
The night he proposed.
The embryos waiting in a clinic we had chosen together.
I thought anger would save me.
Instead, grief did.
“I didn’t wait nine years for you,” I said quietly. “I spent nine years with you.”
His expression faltered.
“There’s a difference.”
“Olivia—”
“You didn’t steal nine years from me. Some of them were good. Some were beautiful. But you destroyed the ending all by yourself.”
Margaret stepped between us.
“Nathan, until the trust filing is reviewed, do not issue instructions on behalf of Vale Biomedical.”
His eyes widened.
“You can’t suspend me at my wedding.”
“You scheduled a corporate ambush for the morning after it.”
A laugh escaped from somewhere near the bar.
Nathan heard it.
His face hardened.
I turned away.
On the reception table stood a massive champagne tower.
I considered knocking it down.
For approximately three seconds.
Then I remembered Miles crying.
I picked up one glass instead.
I raised it toward Nathan.
“To the happy couple.”
Nobody breathed.
“May your marriage contain fewer hidden documents than your company expenses.”