Another pause.
“Fine. But I’m doing it because I love you and because I have always wanted to say ‘billionaire family power struggle’ in a serious context.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
For the first time in days, I felt like myself.
I arranged to send Nora a secure copy of the drive contents from a laptop Vivian provided—one that Nora immediately called “a glittering security liability.” It took her hours to get through the encryption. While she worked, I returned to Ethan’s room.
The lilies were gone.
In their place, Elena had placed a small vase of blue hydrangeas.
The room felt easier to breathe in.
“Better?” I asked Ethan.
One tap.
“I talked to Vivian.”
Two taps came quickly.
“No? You didn’t want me to?”
One tap.
“Yes, you didn’t want me to?”
One tap.
I sighed. “I know she used me. I know she’s controlling. But I also think she loves you.”
His hand stayed still.
“Complicated?” I asked.
One tap.
I sat beside him and took his hand carefully, half expecting him not to respond.
His fingers were cool and thin, but after a moment, they shifted faintly against mine.
It was the smallest pressure.
Yet it changed something in the room.
“You don’t know me,” I said. “And I don’t know you. But everyone keeps deciding things around you. About your company. Your life. Your marriage. Your future.”
His eyelids twitched.
“I don’t want to be one more person who takes choices from you.”
A slow tear gathered at the corner of his eye.
“So here’s what I can promise,” I whispered. “I won’t pretend this marriage is something it isn’t. I won’t make decisions for you unless I have to. And I won’t leave you alone in this house with people who speak about you in the past tense.”
His fingers pressed mine again.
Weakly.
Clearly.
I covered my mouth with my free hand.
It was not romance. Not yet. How could it be?
But it was trust beginning in the only way available to us—one fragile movement at a time.
That evening, Nora called back.
“Are you alone?” she asked.
I locked my bedroom door. “Yes.”
“You need to listen carefully.”
My heart began to race. “What did you find?”
“The drive contains internal Thornton documents. Contracts, emails, board memos. Most of it is about a subsidiary called Veyron Medical Logistics.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Not surprising. It looks like a quiet acquisition Ethan was trying to stop.”
“Why?”
“Because the numbers were wrong. Inflated revenue, hidden liabilities, strange transfers through shell companies. Ethan flagged it as a possible fraud risk.”
“Jason?”
“I can’t prove he was behind it. But his name appears in several email chains pushing the acquisition forward.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“So Ethan found something.”
“Yes. And there’s more.” Nora’s voice lowered. “There’s a file labeled C.T.”
My skin prickled.
“C.T.?”
“Claire Turner.”
I stopped breathing.
“That’s my maiden name.”
“I know.”
“What’s in it?”
“Your father’s debt records. Background check. Photos. Employment history. Your mother’s obituary.”
The room seemed to shrink around me.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I whispered. “Ethan had this drive before the accident. Vivian said he gave it to her two days before.”
“Then someone was looking into you before Ethan’s accident.”
I stood and crossed to the window, staring down at the dark garden below.
Below, near the hedges, Jason stood smoking beneath a lamp.
As if sensing me, he looked up.
