Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The funeral betrayal
My husband brought his mistress to my billionaire father’s funeral because he believed there was no one left alive who could stop him.
I was eight months pregnant, standing beside my father’s mahogany coffin, when Caleb Mercer walked into the chapel holding another woman’s hand.
He wasn’t hiding her.
He wasn’t pretending she was a colleague.
He was holding her hand as though they were the grieving couple and I was an unwelcome guest who had wandered into the wrong funeral.
Then he leaned close enough for me to smell his expensive cologne and whispered seven words that shattered what remained of my marriage.
“Your father is dead.
You’re worthless now.”
He paused, letting the words settle between us.
“I’m taking everything.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t breathe.
The white roses surrounding my father’s coffin blurred, and the organ music seemed to fade into something distant and distorted.
My father’s portrait stood near the altar, his familiar gray eyes looking down at a room filled with people who had come to mourn him.
And beside me stood the man who had promised to love me until death.
Apparently, he had only meant my father’s death.
My name is Eleanor Whitmore Mercer, and I was thirty-two years old when I learned that grief could be used as a weapon.
Four days earlier, my father had died of a sudden heart attack.
Robert Whitmore had built Whitmore Group from a struggling manufacturing business into a multibillion-dollar empire with commercial properties, technology investments, distribution centers, and thousands of employees.
To the business world, he was a ruthless negotiator who never entered a room without knowing exactly what he wanted.
To me, he was the man who made pancakes on Sunday mornings, taught me how to ride a bicycle, and called every birthday no matter where in the world he happened to be.
He had been looking forward to meeting his granddaughter.
Now he never would.
I pressed both hands against my swollen stomach as my daughter kicked beneath my black maternity dress.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I whispered.
But nothing was okay.
Caleb stood in front of me looking as handsome as he had on our wedding day.
His dark hair was perfectly styled, his navy suit fitted his shoulders flawlessly, and his expression carried the confident smile I had once mistaken for kindness.
Beside him stood Vanessa Lane.