The riding crop slipped slightly in his grip.
“You lied to me,” he said.
That was when something inside me finally went cold.
I looked up at the man I had loved.
“No,” I whispered. “You never asked.”
Adrian staggered back one step.
His phone rang.
The screen showed the name of his chief financial officer.
He answered without thinking.
A panicked male voice spilled into the room.
“Adrian, what did you do? The board has locked us out. Heron pulled every guarantee. The Singapore deal is dead. The auditors are already inside the system. Tell me this is a mistake.”
Adrian’s lips parted.
My father said, “Put him on speaker too.”
Adrian’s hand trembled.
He did not obey.
So my father continued anyway.
“Your CFO has three minutes to preserve records. If one file is deleted, I will personally make sure every person involved faces criminal charges.”
The voice on Adrian’s phone went silent.
Then the CFO whispered, “Oh my God.”
The call ended.
Vanessa grabbed Adrian’s arm.
“You told me this company was yours.”
He jerked away from her.
“It is mine.”
My father said, “No. It was rented to you by my daughter’s patience.”
The cruelty of the sentence was almost elegant.
Adrian’s face flushed with rage.
“She’s my wife,” he snapped. “You can’t just take everything from me.”
“I did not take it,” my father replied. “You signed it away.”
Adrian froze.
I remembered the night clearly.
Six months before our wedding, Adrian had insisted on a prenuptial agreement. He had slid it across a restaurant table with a charming smile and told me it was only practical.
I had taken the document home.
My father had read it once, laughed without humor, and placed another document beside it.
“If he wants protection,” my father had said, “give him protection. Then protect yourself better.”
Adrian had signed everything.
