Chapter 1 - The Table I Paid For
The crystal shattered before Grant understood what I was doing.
Dinner plates slid across the mahogany table.
Wineglasses toppled.
A bowl of glazed carrots hit the floor.
Diane screamed as red wine splashed across the front of her cream designer dress.
Brooke jumped backward, clutching her phone to her chest.
Ryan stared at me as if I had suddenly become a stranger.
Maybe I had.
Maybe the woman he knew had disappeared the second his father pressed a cigarette against our unborn child.
Grant slammed both palms against the table.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
I let the embroidered runner fall from my hands.
“You told me to get out of your house.”
I looked slowly around the dining room.
“So I thought you should understand exactly how much of this house belongs to you.”
Grant laughed.
It was loud and ugly.
“Ryan, control your wife.”
Ryan took a step toward me.
I lifted my phone.
“Come closer.”
He stopped.
“I already photographed my injury.”
I looked at Grant.
“I photographed the cigarette.”
Then Ryan.
“And I have bruises forming on both wrists.”
Brooke’s face changed.
For the first time that night, she looked nervous.
Diane noticed.
“Brooke?”
Brooke shoved her phone behind her back.
Too late.
I had seen the screen.
The camera application was open.
“You recorded it.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were filming dinner when Grant burned me.”
“I was filming the countdown decorations.”
“Give me the phone.”
Her face hardened.
“No.”
Grant laughed again.
“There’s your evidence problem solved.”
I stared at him.
He actually believed Brooke would erase the recording and that would be the end of it.
He had no idea my penthouse had a professionally installed security system.
Not the cheap camera Ryan thought controlled the entrance.
A complete system.
Kitchen.
Living room.
Hallway.
Elevator vestibule.
Installed after a break-in at my company two years earlier.
Ryan knew cameras existed.
He did not know they automatically uploaded encrypted copies to a secure account controlled only by me.
Grant pointed at the elevator.
“Out.”
I picked up my coat.
Ryan smirked.
I walked toward the elevator.
Then I stopped beside the wall panel.
I entered my access code.
A soft chime sounded.
Ryan frowned.
“What are you doing?”
I turned toward them.
“Revoking guest access.”
Grant’s smile vanished.
The elevator doors opened.
I stepped inside.
Ryan moved forward.
“Claire.”
I pressed the lobby button.
“You have until the police arrive to decide whether you want to explain why your fingerprints are on my wrists or why your father’s cigarette burned through my sweater.”
The doors began closing.
Ryan shoved his hand between them.
“You called the police?”
“Not yet.”
His expression relaxed.
I held up my phone.
“I’m calling them from the lobby.”
The doors shut on his face.
Thirty seconds later, as the elevator descended, my phone buzzed.
It was the security system.
MOTION DETECTED: MASTER BEDROOM.
I opened the live camera.
Ryan wasn’t packing.
May you like
He was opening my safe.
And Brooke was standing beside him.
