Chapter 2

The next morning, at the café downstairs from the office.

Paddy Stephens slid a thick equity transfer agreement across the table to me.

"Sign this, and Fred loses absolute control of the company." He pushed his gold-rimmed glasses up, his tone professional and cool. "Ms. Pruitt, don't waste your feelings on a piece of garbage. Taking back what's yours is the best revenge."

I picked up the pen beside me. The moment the nib touched the paper, there wasn't a flicker of hesitation in me.

Fifteen minutes later, I pushed open the door of the company conference room.

Fred was sitting at the head of the table, Paige standing beside him with a file in her hands.

When he saw me come in, his brow creased slightly.

"What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you to rest at home for a few days?"

There was a note of lofty charity in his voice.

I pulled out the chair across from him and sat, my gaze sweeping over Paige.

She was dressed in a sharply tailored suit today, but around her neck was a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace.

The one I'd put in my cart last month, meaning to buy it for myself as a birthday present.

"If I hadn't come, how would I have found out you'd handed the Everline Group deal off to someone else?" I leaned back in the chair, my voice calm.

Fred set down his pen and sighed.

"Celeste, don't bring your personal feelings into work."

He looked at me with an extremely magnanimous expression.

"The state you're in right now, you can't possibly handle the Everline deal. Paige may lack experience, but she's willing to learn."

"I'm taking some of the pressure off you. Why can't you appreciate that?"

Paige's eyes reddened at once. Right on cue, she stepped forward and held the file out to me.

"That's right, Cel. Fred's just worried about you. Don't worry, I'll follow up on it properly."

She gave me a little smile, but the challenge in her eyes was impossible to hide.

I didn't take the file. I just looked at her quietly.

"Work isn't as simple as seducing a man."

"I've been on the Everline deal for half a year. You sure you can handle it?"

Paige shook her head quickly. "Cel, I know I was wrong. I just... I was just so envious of you."

Tears fell, landing on the file.

"You have everything. A great career, a husband who adores you. Every time I saw how happy you were, I couldn't help thinking, what if Fred loved me instead?"

"I never meant to wreck your family. I just wanted to borrow a little of your happiness."

I watched her weep her way through the performance, and felt nothing at all inside.

Envy? Borrow a little happiness?

She made an affair sound so fresh and pure.

Fred's face darkened.

"Celeste, do you really have to make things ugly for everyone?"

He folded his hands on the table, taking on the airs of a chairman.

"Paige is just a diversion. I've told you, the position of Mrs. Harding is yours forever."

"Over a joke, you'd throw away everything we've built over all these years?"

Built.

That word coming out of his mouth was almost too much to bear.

I thought of our second year in business, when we couldn't even make rent on the office.

Fred and I, sitting in a rented apartment with no heat, staying up all night reworking the business plan.

Back then he'd wrapped his down jacket around me.

"Cel, once the company's big, it's all yours to run. I'll work for you."

His smile then had been so sincere. Sincere enough to make me believe it would last forever.

And now he sat on the empire I'd built, kept my best friend on the side, and thought he was doing me a favor.

"I won't make a scene." I stood, planting both hands on the table, looking down at him. "If you think she can do it, then let her."

I turned and walked toward the conference room door, pausing as my hand closed around the handle.

"But Fred, do you really think Paige can pull off Everline's due diligence?"

I turned my head, watching Paige's face freeze in an instant.

"She can't even read a financial statement."