Chapter 4 - Grant Finally Told Me Why He Was Begging
Grant was waiting outside my apartment when I returned.
He looked terrible.
Wrinkled shirt.
No tie.
Red eyes.
For six years I had watched him treat appearance like religion.
Seeing him unravel should have satisfied me.
It didn’t.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need ten minutes.”
“You needed ten seconds to decide not to hit your wife.”
He flinched.
Good.
“I deserve that.”
“You deserve considerably more.”
He looked toward my security guard.
“I won’t touch you.”
“You said something similar at our wedding.”
His eyes dropped.
I opened the building door.
“Ten minutes.”
Grant followed me upstairs.
He stopped when he saw a suitcase beside the couch.
“You’re leaving me.”
“I already left.”
“Claire—”
“Start talking.”
He sat.
For once, he didn’t look like the owner of a luxury jewelry empire.
He looked like a frightened man who had financed a lifestyle with money he didn’t have.
“Whitmore started losing money two years ago.”
“You hid it.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Loans.”
“Then more loans to hide the first loans?”
He nodded.
“How original.”
“I thought the flagship expansion would fix it.”
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
“And Vivienne knew.”
“She approached me after one of our lenders refused another extension.”
“What did she offer?”
“Capital.”
“From Aurelian?”
“Yes.”
“And what did they want?”
“Mercer voting control.”
I stared at him.
“So you sold something that belonged to me.”
“I thought I could acquire enough shares legally.”
“By forging my signature.”
Grant closed his eyes.
“I did not forge it.”
I paused.
“What?”
“I gave the documents to Vivienne.”
“Why?”
“She said she could get your authorization.”
“And you didn’t question that?”
“I thought she meant through the trust office.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“Who signed my name?”
“I don’t know.”
I studied him.
This time, I wasn’t certain he was lying.
“Did you meet my father?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Zurich.”
That contradicted the timeline.
“You bought his flight to New York.”
“After the Zurich meeting.”
“What happened there?”
“Vivienne took me.”
“To meet Jonathan?”
Grant nodded.
“What did he offer?”
“Enough money to save Whitmore.”
“In exchange for?”
“Your voting block.”
There it was.
“Dad wanted my shares.”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
Jonathan had sat across from me hours earlier claiming he wanted to stop the transfer.
“Why?”
“He said the trust rightfully belonged to him.”
I thought of his warning.
Do not let Friday happen.
Not necessarily to save me.
Maybe to stop me from owning what he wanted.
“What is Aurelian?”
Grant looked genuinely confused.
“I thought it belonged to Jonathan.”
“Thought?”
“He acted like it did.”
“But?”
“Three weeks ago I asked him directly.”
“And?”
“He told me never to ask again.”
My father’s polished victim story cracked.
“What happened after that?”
“Vivienne became scared.”
“Of Jonathan?”
“Yes.”
I laughed bitterly.
“She looked remarkably relaxed while watching you slap me.”
Grant’s shame flashed across his face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do not use that word unless you understand how little it fixes.”
He nodded.
“She changed recently.”
“How?”
“She started asking me to destroy documents.”
“What documents?”
“Store acquisition records.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Which acquisitions?”
Grant hesitated.
I stepped closer.
“Grant.”
“The old Mercer pieces.”
“The Aurora Collection?”
“Not the collection itself.”
“What then?”
“Replacement stones.”
I stared.
“Replacement?”
He opened his phone.
Photographs showed several antique necklaces.
Each had a catalog number.
“I discovered that someone had been removing stones from the Mercer archive and replacing them with replicas.”
My blood ran cold.
“How many?”
“At least seventeen.”
“What happened to the originals?”
“I don’t know.”
“Value?”
“Forty to sixty million.”
I thought of my grandfather.
My father.
Aurelian.
Vivienne.
“Who had archive access?”
Grant looked at me.
“Your mother.”
Of course.
“And?”
“Martin Vale.”
My grandfather’s attorney.
The man who negotiated my father’s disappearance.
The man who had been at every major family event of my life.
“And Jonathan?”
“Before he disappeared.”
I sat down.
Grant continued.
“Claire, I know what I did.”
“No, you know what you got caught doing.”
He swallowed.
“Maybe.”
For once, honesty.
“But I think Vivienne and your father were using me.”
“Congratulations.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He leaned toward me.
“Friday isn’t about your birthday.”
“What is it about?”
“The board meeting.”
“I know.”
“No.”
His voice dropped.
“The private meeting afterward.”
“What private meeting?”
Grant went pale.
“Martin scheduled it.”
My heart slowed.
“Martin?”
“He has voting instructions from the Mercer trust.”
I stood.
“That’s impossible.”
“He showed them to me.”
“What instructions?”
Grant whispered:
“If the Aurelian sale passes, Martin becomes temporary trustee of every Mercer share under dispute.”
I stopped breathing.
Not Grant.
Not Vivienne.
Not Jonathan.
Martin Vale.
The family attorney who had stood quietly behind all of us for decades.
The man my grandfather trusted.
The man my mother trusted.
The man who helped fake my father’s death.
The man who wrote the trust paperwork.
I remembered my father’s words.
The most dangerous person had been inside my family long before Grant.
Then my phone rang.
Mom.
I answered.
“Claire.”
Her voice sounded wrong.
“What happened?”
“I went to check the original Mercer Covenant.”
“And?”
“The page naming the emergency trustee is missing.”
My skin went cold.
“Who had access?”
Mom was silent.
She didn’t have to answer.
May you like
We both knew.
Martin Vale.
