Chapter 2: The Call She Wasn't Supposed to Receive
The SUV moved through the storm in silence.
Claire sat in the back, shoes still in her hand, rain drying on her face.
She didn't cry.
She had already decided she wouldn't give that night one more tear.
Her phone lit up again.
Not Lily this time.
Ethan.
She watched his name flash three times.
Then she set the phone face-down on the leather seat.
Daniel Mercer's message was still open on the screen beneath it.
*The board is assembled.*
Claire had waited fourteen months for those four words.
Ever since her father's diagnosis.
Ever since the lawyers had quietly transferred controlling interest of Whitmore Global into her name.
Ever since she had realized that Ethan's mother had begun pressuring him to "resolve the marriage situation" the same week Harrington Development signed its financing agreement with Sterling Capital.
The same Sterling Capital that Brooke's father controlled.
It had never been about love.
It had been a business arrangement.
And Claire had been the inconvenient variable.
Her phone buzzed one final time.
A name she didn't expect.
*Brooke Sterling.*
Claire stared at it.
Then she answered.
Brooke's voice was different now.
Lower.
The polished confidence was gone.
"You need to stop whatever you're planning."
Claire said nothing.
"You don't understand what my father will do if this deal falls apart."
Still nothing.
Brooke's voice dropped to almost a whisper.
"Claire.
He doesn't know you're Whitmore's daughter.
And if he finds out before tomorrow morning—"
She stopped herself.
Claire waited.
"Someone could get h*rt."
The line went quiet.
Claire lowered the phone slowly.
Outside, Whitmore Tower appeared through the rain, its top floors lit against the dark Chicago sky.
Something Brooke had just said didn't add up.
*He doesn't know.*
Which meant Ethan didn't know either.
Which meant Margaret had arranged this entire divorce without telling her own son who Claire's father was.
The question was why.
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What Margaret was hiding is darker than anyone realized — and Claire is about to find out.
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