Chapter 6 - The Uninvited Guest
While the tense domestic drama unfolded inside the green room, a very different kind of storm was brewing upstairs in the executive holding suites of the Hudson Foundation.
Serena Vale paced furiously across the plush Persian rug of the bridal suite, her phone pressed tightly against her ear. Her mascara was slightly smudged, a rare crack in her immaculate public facade.
“I don’t care what the federal prosecutor’s office says!” Serena hissed into the receiver. “Find out who leaked the existence of those brats to the gossip columns! If this story hits Page Six tomorrow morning, Cross Freight stock is going to take a five-point hit before the opening bell, and my father’s shipping board will pull out of the merger!”
On the other end of the line, a nervous PR associate stammered an excuse about investigative journalists digging through old Westchester census records and hospital logs.
“Fix it!” Serena shrieked, slamming the phone down onto the glass vanity table so hard the screen cracked.
She walked over to the private balcony overlooking 5th Avenue, her mind racing with a venomous, calculating fury. For three years, she had played the perfect consort to Gabriel Cross. She had endured the whispered rumors about his past, the late-night phone calls from shady logistics brokers, the armed bodyguards standing outside their penthouse doors—all because she believed she was securing her place at the top of New York’s financial elite.
And now, a ghost from Gabriel’s past—a quiet, unremarkable woman from Westchester—walked back into a ballroom with three little boys and threatened to tear down everything Serena had sacrificed her youth to build.
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“Not a chance,” Serena muttered to herself, her fingernails digging sharply into her palms.
She turned away from the balcony, snatched up her designer clutch, and strode toward the suite’s private elevator. If Gabriel was blinded by some sudden surge of paternal sentimentality, she would simply have to handle the problem herself.
