Chapter 2 - THE MAN BESIDE ME
Marcus continued staring at Julian as though someone had quietly changed the laws of gravity.
The color had drained from his face. His champagne glass remained suspended between his fingers, tilted enough that a pale stream slid over the rim and darkened his cuff.
“You married Julian Rhodes?” he repeated.
Before I could answer, Emma placed both hands around my face and announced, “Daddy found my shoes, but I don’t want to wear them.”
Julian stopped beside us, entirely calm.
“I gathered that from the speed of your escape.”
Emma giggled and hid her bare feet behind my dress.
Julian slipped one arm around my waist. The gesture was natural, almost absentminded, and that seemed to disturb Marcus more than any display of possession could have.
Julian did not need to prove that I belonged to him.
He was simply standing beside his family.
“Marcus Mercer,” Julian said. “I wondered whether we would meet tonight.”
Marcus forced a smile. “Mr. Rhodes. I didn’t realize you knew my ex-wife.”
“Evelyn is my wife.”
The correction was polite.
It was also unmistakable.
Chloe finally released Marcus’s arm. She looked at me with a new calculation in her eyes, as if my navy dress, quiet smile, and lack of jewelry had suddenly become pieces of a puzzle she had assembled incorrectly.
“How long?” she asked.
Julian glanced at me before answering. “We met four years ago. We’ve been married for three.”
“So quickly after the divorce?” Chloe said.
I almost admired her nerve.
“Not as quickly as you moved into my kitchen,” I replied.
Julian’s mouth twitched.
Marcus’s expression sharpened.
Around us, several guests had become extremely interested in conversations they were no longer having. My cousin’s wedding was not the place for a confrontation, and I had no intention of becoming the evening’s entertainment.
I set Emma down and slipped her silver shoes onto her feet.
“Let’s find Aunt Rachel before she thinks we disappeared.”
Emma took my hand.
As we turned away, Marcus spoke again.
“Julian, about the acquisition meeting Monday—”
“Monday is still Monday,” Julian said. “Tonight belongs to the bride and groom.”
His tone was perfectly professional, but Marcus heard what I did.
No reassurance.
No promise.
No indication that Rhodes Capital still intended to save Mercer Development from whatever crisis had forced Marcus to seek a buyer.
We walked toward the dance floor.
“Are you all right?” Julian asked quietly.
“Yes.”
He studied me.
“You don’t have to be.”
“I know.”
That was one of the reasons I loved him.
Marcus had treated every emotion as a weakness to exploit. Julian treated honesty as a form of trust.
Emma spotted my cousin and ran toward her. Julian handed me a glass of sparkling water.
“You never told me Chloe would be here.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You also never told me Marcus enjoyed public humiliation.”
“He enjoys any room where he believes he has the most power.”
Julian glanced over my shoulder.
“He no longer believes that.”
Across the ballroom, Marcus was speaking urgently to Chloe. She looked toward us several times, her earlier smile gone.
“I should have told you sooner that Mercer Development was the acquisition target,” Julian said.
“You were bound by confidentiality.”
“I could have withdrawn from the negotiations.”
“Because Marcus is my ex-husband?”
“Because he hurt you.”
I touched his hand.
“If the deal is good, make it. If it’s bad, walk away. I don’t want revenge influencing your company.”
Something unreadable passed through his eyes.
“The deal may be worse than bad.”
Before I could ask what he meant, the band began the first dance. Guests gathered around my cousin and her husband as they moved beneath the chandeliers.
For several minutes, the wedding became a wedding again.
Then my phone vibrated.
The message came from a number I did not recognize.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT EMMA AWAY FROM HIM.
A photograph followed.
It showed Emma running into my arms thirty seconds earlier.
The image had been taken from somewhere inside the ballroom.
I turned slowly, searching the guests.
“What is it?” Julian asked.
I showed him.
His face changed.
Not dramatically. Julian never reacted dramatically. But his shoulders became still, and his eyes moved toward every exit.
“Do you recognize the number?”
“No.”
He signaled discreetly to Daniel Price, the head of his security team, who stood near the ballroom doors.
Daniel examined the message and began checking the room.
Another text arrived.
MARCUS DESERVES TO KNOW WHO HER REAL FATHER IS.
My pulse stumbled.
Julian read it.
“Is there anything you need to tell me?”
“No. Emma is your daughter.”
“I know.”
The certainty in his answer steadied me.
The first message could have been designed to frighten us. The second was designed to divide us.
Only a handful of people knew I had met Julian shortly after my divorce. Emma had been born almost a year later, but rumors did not require mathematics when cruelty was more useful than truth.
Chloe stood near the bar, watching my phone.
When our eyes met, she looked away.
“Stay with Emma,” I told Julian.
“Where are you going?”
“To ask Chloe a question.”
He caught my wrist gently.
“Evelyn.”
“I’m not going to attack her at my cousin’s wedding.”
“That wasn’t what worried me.”
“What was?”
“That this is intended to separate us.”
He was right.
I looked toward the bar again.
Chloe was gone.
So was Marcus.
Daniel returned and whispered something to Julian.
“The hotel’s west stairwell camera went offline three minutes ago,” Julian told me. “Marcus and Chloe were seen heading in that direction.”
Emma was with my parents near the dance floor, surrounded by relatives. Daniel placed two guards nearby.
Julian and I entered the west corridor.
At the end of it, the fire door stood slightly open.
Voices came from the stairwell.
“You said she was alone,” Marcus snapped.
“I didn’t know she married him,” Chloe replied.
“You knew she had a child.”
“I thought the girl belonged to someone insignificant.”
My hand tightened around the door.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“If Rhodes discovers what’s in the company records, the acquisition is dead.”
“That’s why we need Evelyn’s drive.”
“She won’t still have it after five years.”
“She has it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I searched her room.”
I looked at Julian.
Chloe had searched my hotel room.
The encrypted drive was not there. I kept it inside a bank safe-deposit box under my maiden name.
But Marcus now knew it still existed.
“What exactly is on it?” Chloe asked.
“Enough to destroy us.”
Footsteps climbed toward the door.
Julian pulled me into a recessed service alcove. Marcus and Chloe emerged without seeing us.
Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered as they walked away.
“Yes?”
A pause.
His face tightened.
“What do you mean the bank froze the credit line?”
Julian looked at me.
He had not ordered any freeze.
Marcus listened, then stopped moving entirely.
“When did they receive the anonymous report?”
Chloe whispered, “What report?”
Marcus lowered the phone.
Someone had reported Mercer Development before I even entered the wedding.
May you like
Someone other than me possessed evidence of Marcus’s financial crimes.
And judging by the terror on his face, that evidence involved something far more dangerous than the encrypted drive I had carried away five years ago.
