Sloane stared at Miriam, her mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish. Then, she turned slowly to look at Richard.
“You… you investigated me?” she whispered, her voice breaking. “You put your lawyers on me?”
Richard finally looked at her. His eyes were cold, dead, and entirely devoid of the affection he had faked for months. “You lied to me,” he said flatly. “You tried to extort me for a penthouse.”
Sloane slapped him.
She didn’t just slap him; she swung her arm with the full force of her body, the sharp crack of her palm striking his cheek echoing off the high ceiling like a gunshot.
The sound was beautiful.
Chaos erupted. The bailiffs surged forward, grabbing Sloane by the arms as she screamed obscenities, mascara streaking down her perfectly contoured face. She thrashed against the officers, screaming that Richard had promised her the life, the ring, the status, the company.
Eleanor Sterling tried to follow the bailiffs as they dragged Sloane out the heavy wooden doors, but Richard reached back and grabbed his mother’s wrist in a vise-like grip.
“Sit down,” he snarled at his mother, his face dark red, the handprint blossoming on his cheek. “Fix this.”
Eleanor looked at her son. She didn’t look at him with a mother’s love. She looked at him as if he had suddenly become a very expensive, deeply broken liability.
“I told you,” Eleanor whispered, her voice vibrating with cold fury. “I told you never to give a smart woman a reason to read the fine print.”
I stayed perfectly seated. My hands rested calmly on the swell of my stomach. That was the fundamental difference between Richard and me. He needed noise, violence, and intimidation to feel powerful. I just needed the paperwork.
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