Chapter 4
She took a slow, deep breath. Her hand rested on her baby’s gentle flutter.
Graham picked up his glass of sparkling mineral water and raised it slightly toward her.
“To figuring it out,” he said softly.
A slow, genuine smile spread across Emma’s face—the first real, radiant smile she had worn in half a year.
“To figuring it out,” she replied, and touched her glass to his.
The unraveling of Pierce Dynamics did not happen overnight, but when it came, it was catastrophic.
It began on the second Tuesday of February, exactly three weeks after the dinner at the Bellamy Room.
Nolan had spent those three weeks in an agonizing state of insomnia. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Emma’s calm, unblinking eyes. Every time he looked at Vanessa, who spent her days arranging interviews with luxury lifestyle magazines and spending thousands on interior designers for the penthouse, he felt a creeping, venomous irritation.
Vanessa’s voice, which had once seemed so admiring and light, now sounded like nails on a chalkboard.
“Nolan, Vanity Fair wants to do a feature on ‘Manhattan’s Power Couples under Forty,’” she announced over breakfast one morning, adjusting her silk robe. “I told them we’d allow them inside the penthouse, but only if they give us the cover of the regional insert.”
Nolan stared at his black coffee, his eyes rimmed with red. “Cancel it.”
Vanessa froze, a forkful of avocado toast hovering near her lips. “What?”
“I said cancel it. We have the board meeting this morning. I don’t have time for your vanity projects.”
“My vanity projects?” Her voice spiked. “Nolan, my PR strategy is the only reason your personal brand survived that tacky divorce! Do you know what people in my circle say? They think you dumped a pregnant woman! I have spent months planting stories about her instability to protect your valuation!”
Nolan slammed his coffee cup onto the marble counter, shattering the delicate porcelain saucer beneath it. Dark liquid splashed across the imported Italian stone.
“Her name is Emma,” Nolan snarled, stepping close to her. “And that ‘unstable’ woman just handed Graham Whitmore the keys to our entire offshore network.”
Vanessa’s lips parted, the color draining from her cheeks. “What... what does she know? You told me everything was legal. You said your accountants—”
“My accountants didn't build the original algorithms!” Nolan shouted, running both hands through his disheveled hair. “She did! She knows where every single shell invoice came from because she helped me write the automated reconciliation software eight years ago when we were eating ramen out of paper cups!”