LOGINShare
Chapter 14: The Offer on the Table
publish date:
2026-07-05 01:57:32
Latest chapter
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 14: The Offer on the Table
Jeremy's POVVivienne was waiting at a hotel bar in the city center, somewhere neutral and public and anonymous, which told me she was either frightened or very deliberate. With Vivienne, it was usually both.She had a glass of water in front of her and an untouched menu and the look of a woman who had spent the evening rehearsing something she was not entirely sure she was still going to say.I sat down across from her."You know about Eleanor's confession," I said."I know Eleanor was alone in a room with Madeline Crawford and Mrs. Pak tonight, yes." She wrapped both hands around the water glass. "How much did she tell you?""Everything."Vivienne closed her eyes briefly."The restructuring," I said. "Your role in it. The secondary accounts. Graham Pierce's theft.""How much of that can she actually prove?""Enough.""Define enough.""Mrs. Pak has been running a private archive of this family's business for thirty years," I said. "She has account statements, copied documents, and en
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 13: What Vivienne Knew
Madeline's POVI did not go back to Nathan's house that night.I drove to Dara's instead, arrived at eleven with the folder and Mrs. Pak and a tiredness that went all the way to the bone, and Dara, being Dara, asked no questions, just put the kettle on and cleared her dining table and let us spread everything out.Mrs. Pak's archive was remarkable. Thirty years of a careful, quiet woman making herself invisible in rooms where powerful people forgot to be careful. Phone records. Copied memos. Photographs of documents taken on the kind of small camera that passed for a pen. A digital drive, neatly labeled by year, that Dara plugged into her laptop with an expression that shifted from curiosity to something approaching awe as the file tree expanded across her screen."This is everything," Dara said, almost to herself."I kept what seemed important," Mrs. Pak said."You kept everything that was important," Dara said. "This is a full record of the Whitman family's financial decisions going
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 12: What Eleanor Built
Jeremy's POVMy mother talked for forty minutes without stopping.I stood against the wall, and I let her, because sitting felt like a comfort I had not earned yet, and because I needed to hear every word of it without interrupting, without letting my own reaction swallow what she was saying before it fully landed.She told us about my father's investments. The property deals that had looked solid on paper and turned out to be leveraged against assets that were never actually owned. The loans he had taken in the company's name without board approval. The shortfall she had discovered fourteen months after his funeral when the auditors began asking questions she realized she had no clean answers to.She told us how she had gone to Graham Pierce, because Graham Pierce was the man her husband had trusted with everything, and she had no one else left.She told us what Graham advised."He didn't suggest using Madeline's credentials initially," she said, her voice flat now, stripped of its u
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 11: The Woman Who Watched
Madeline's POVEvery head in that room turned toward me.Eleanor's face went white, then immediately arranged itself back into composure, the way a pool of water closes over a stone. Jeremy stood frozen between the desk and the window, his expression caught somewhere between relief and dread. And behind me, in the hallway, Mrs. Pak, Eleanor's housekeeper of thirty years, stood with her hands folded in front of her and her eyes fixed on the floor."Mrs. Pak," I said quietly. "Would you like to come in."Eleanor pushed to her feet. "This is my home. You do not invite people into my study.""I think Mrs. Pak has been waiting a very long time to be invited somewhere," I said, and I stepped aside to let her through the doorway.She was a small woman, in her late sixties, with the kind of stillness that comes from decades of making yourself invisible in other people's spaces. She walked into the study and stood just inside the door, and she did not look at Eleanor once."It was you," Jeremy
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 10: What Eleanor Confessed
Jeremy's POVThe house on Birch Hill had not changed in thirty years. Same ivy on the brick, same circular drive, same housekeeper who had worked for my mother since before I was born and who let me in without a word, her eyes carrying the particular sympathy of someone who knew more than she was allowed to say.My mother was waiting in the study, a glass of sherry untouched on the table beside her, her posture rigid in the way it only got when she was bracing for something."Sit down, Jeremy.""I'd rather stand.""Sit down." It was not a request. I sat."I know about the wire transfers," I said, before she could control the direction of the conversation the way she controlled every conversation she had ever had with me. "I know Vivienne handled them personally. I know about the document with your handwriting on it. Burn the originals, mother. Did you really write that?"Her face did not change, which told me everything."Sit there and judge me if you want," she said. "But understand
IF YOU LOVE ME, DIE FOR ME Chapter 9: The House on Birch Hill
Madeline's POVI did not tell Nathan about the document.I told myself it was strategy, that I needed to verify its authenticity before bringing it to anyone, and that moving carefully was the only way to ensure it could not be discredited later. Some of that was true. The rest of it was that I did not yet know whether I trusted him with it, and that not knowing scared me more than I wanted to admit.I brought it to Dara instead."It's real," she said, after running it through three different verification processes, comparing signatures, checking metadata, cross-referencing the letterhead against authenticated company documents from that period. "Or it's the best forgery I've ever seen, which would require resources neither of us has any reason to think the sender has.""So it's real.""It's real."I sat back in my chair, the weight of it settling into my chest. Five years of believing one woman's jealousy had destroyed me, and the truth was so much larger, so much colder. A financial
You may also like
Master Odell’s Secret Ex-wife
Eggsoup1.2M viewsPowerful Papa with Triplet Babies
Pink Dolphin635.5K viewsRevenge of the Hideous Lady
Moonlight971.2K viewsMeet My Brothers
Red Thirteen5.8M viewsMarried To The Wrong Brother
Fine wine42 viewsSin City (The Devil’s Plus Size Bride)
Eliza67 viewsBefore We Were US
Irena Dane40 viewsMy Billionaire Ex Forgot Our Divorce:I Became His Wife Again
Ivy Crane69 views
