Chapter 3: The Blue Box
Lily pointed toward the staircase.
“The paper with the red ribbon.”
Vivienne Shaw—the woman Marcus had planned to marry in eleven days—crossed the room quickly.
“She’s three years old.
She saw a wedding invitation.”
Lily shook her head.
“You put it in the blue box.”
“What blue box?” Marcus asked.
“The one under the stairs.”
Vivienne moved in front of the doorway.
“This has gone far enough.”
“No,” Marcus said.
“Move.”
“You’re exhausted and confused.”
Daniel Price, the physical therapist, closed the rehabilitation folder.
“He has asked you to move.”
Vivienne turned on him.
“You work for us.”
“I work for Marcus.”
Claire lifted Lily into her arms.
“The blue box is in the linen cupboard.
I saw Vivienne carrying it yesterday.”
Vivienne’s eyes narrowed.
“You also signed a confidentiality agreement.”
“About this household,” Claire said.
“Not about fraud.”
Marcus held out his hand.
“Claire, bring me the box.”
Vivienne caught the wheelchair handle before he could turn.
“If you embarrass me over something a child imagined, there will be no repairing this.”
Marcus looked at her fingers.
“Take your hand off my chair.”
She released it slowly.
“You’ll regret humiliating me.”
Daniel stepped beside Marcus.
“I’ll go with Claire.”
“No,” Vivienne said.
“Nobody searches my home.”
Marcus’s voice hardened.
“My name is on the deed.”
Claire carried Lily into the hall, and Daniel followed.
Vivienne stayed between Marcus and the door.
“You loved me yesterday,” she said.
“Yesterday I didn’t know you had hidden my medical progress.”
“I protected you from false hope.”
“You cancelled therapy.”
“You begged me to.”
“I said I was tired.
You told Daniel I had refused all further treatment.”
“You did refuse.”
“For one week.”
Vivienne folded her arms.
“Do you hear yourself?
You want someone else to blame because you gave up.”
The words landed cleanly.
Marcus’s hands loosened on the bars.
Daniel returned with an empty blue document box.
“It was behind the towels,” he said.
“No paper inside.”
Vivienne smiled.
“There.
A child’s game.”
Lily leaned away from her mother’s shoulder.
“The red ribbon was there.”
Claire touched the bottom of the box.
“Wait.”
A narrow strip of torn paper had caught beneath the lining.
Daniel pulled it free and placed it in Marcus’s hand.
Only five words remained visible:
PETITION FOR EMERGENCY GUARDIANSHIP.
Marcus looked at Vivienne.
“You were going to have me declared incompetent?”
“I was preparing for every possibility.”
“Without telling me?”
“You stopped opening company reports.
You forgot meetings.
You took medication that made you barely coherent.”
“Medication you handed me.”
Vivienne’s jaw tightened.
“Prescribed medication.”
Marcus reached for his phone.
“I’m calling my attorney.”
She snatched the phone from the table.
Daniel stepped forward.
“Give it back.”
Vivienne held it behind her.
“Not until he calms down.”
Marcus stared at the woman who had fed him pills, answered his calls, and spoken for him in every room.
“Did you file that petition?”
Her own phone lit up in her hand.
A message appeared before she could turn the screen away.
ADRIAN VALE: The judge signs at nine.
Keep him away from the office.
Marcus read it twice.
“Adrian?” he said.
“My chief financial officer?”
Vivienne locked the screen.
Lily buried her face against Claire’s neck.
Marcus extended his hand.
“Give me both phones.”
“You’re in no condition to order anyone around.”
Daniel placed Marcus’s phone in his palm after taking it from her loosened fingers.
Marcus called his attorney and put the call on speaker.
“Elena,” he said, “was an emergency guardianship petition filed in my name?”
Silence filled the room.
Then Elena Brooks answered.
“Marcus, it wasn’t filed in your name.
It was filed against you.”
May you like
Vivienne stepped backward.
“And the hearing,” Elena continued, “begins in forty-five minutes.”
