Chapter 2
His eyes narrowed.
“You know how much is at stake.”
“Yes,” Evelyn whispered. “Better than you do.”
Then she walked past him.
And this time, he let her go.
At 12:17 a.m., Evelyn entered the underground parking garage.
Her driver, Thomas, was waiting beside the black sedan.
He had worked for her for twelve years.
One look at her face, and he opened the door without speaking.
“Where to, Mrs. Mercer?”
“Not home.”
She settled into the back seat.
“Take me to Whitcomb and Price.”
Thomas glanced at her in the mirror.
“At this hour?”
“Call ahead. Tell Daniel I’m coming.”
As the car pulled into the snowstorm, Evelyn took out her phone.
There were already eleven messages from Grant.
Three from Caroline.
One from Raymond.
She ignored them all.
Then she opened a photograph she had received two days earlier.
A tiny face.
Closed eyes.
A small fist curled against a white hospital blanket.
Her daughter.
Her miracle.
For seven years, Evelyn had endured failed pregnancies, painful procedures, and two losses she could barely speak about.
Five months earlier, complications during her pregnancy had required specialized treatment in Cleveland.
At thirty-one weeks, she had delivered a premature baby girl.
For six terrifying weeks, that child had lived inside a neonatal intensive care unit, surrounded by machines, monitors, and doctors who refused to promise anything.
Grant had known about the early pregnancy.
He had also known about Evelyn’s previous losses.
But when she was hospitalized after a serious complication, she had asked him to come.
He had sent flowers.
Then he had sent a message.
Raymond says the acquisition cannot wait. I’ll come when things settle down.
Things had never settled down.
And after Evelyn discovered that Grant had authorized investigators to monitor her medical travel, she stopped sharing information.
Three days earlier, her daughter had finally been discharged.
Healthy.
Breathing on her own.
Weighing just over five pounds.
Evelyn had named her Grace.
And tonight, while Grant placed a crown on Caroline’s head, Grace was sleeping safely in Cleveland with a neonatal nurse Evelyn trusted.
Her husband had no idea his daughter was already alive.
But Raymond might.
That possibility frightened Evelyn more than the affair.
Daniel Price was waiting when she arrived.
He was fifty-two, gray-haired, and had been Evelyn’s personal attorney since before her marriage.
Beside him sat a younger woman named Rebecca Sloan, a specialist in corporate governance.