CHAPTER 14

ETHAN’S FIRST MISTAKE

Ethan called me three times before noon.

I let the first two ring out. On the third I answered.

“We need to talk,” he said. His voice sounded rough, like he hadn’t slept. “In person.”

“I’m busy.”

“Five minutes. I’ll come to you.”

I looked at the clock on my desk. “You have until I finish this call with legal. After that I’m leaving the building.”

He was waiting in the lobby when I came downstairs.

He looked worse than he had at the birthday party. Shirt slightly wrinkled. Eyes restless. The confident man who had tried to announce a wedding date in front of half the industry was gone. What remained looked cornered.

We stepped into one of the smaller meeting rooms near the lobby. I didn’t sit.

“Say what you need to say.”

Ethan dragged a hand through his hair. “Chloe thinks you’re moving assets behind the family’s back. She’s convinced you’re trying to freeze her out of the logistics chain and anything connected to it.”

I kept my face empty. “Chloe thinks a lot of things.”

“She’s not wrong, is she?” He took a step closer. “You’ve been different. Cold. Calculating. She said you’re going to try to push a secondary transfer through the subsidiary board before the next full meeting. Something about reassigning voting rights on the warehouse holdings.”

I went still.

The warehouse holdings.

In the original timeline, that had been their second move — a quiet reassignment of voting rights that gave Chloe effective control over a chain of properties without triggering a full board review. They hadn’t even discussed it yet in this timeline. Not in any conversation I had access to. Not in any message I had seen.

Ethan had just spoken it out loud.

He didn’t notice the mistake. He was too busy watching my reaction.

“I don’t know what she’s been telling you,” he went on. “But if you do this, it won’t look like strategy. It’ll look like paranoia. The board is already whispering about your stability. You push too hard and they’ll start questioning every decision you make.”

I tilted my head slightly.

“Chloe told you about the warehouse holdings?” I asked.

Ethan hesitated for half a second. “We’ve talked about the company’s structure. Of course we have.”

“That’s interesting.”

His eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because I only flagged the warehouse voting rights in a private memo this morning. It hasn’t been circulated. It hasn’t been discussed. The only people who should know about it are me and one lawyer who doesn’t speak to Chloe.”

Color drained from Ethan’s face.

He recovered quickly, but not quickly enough.

“She must have heard it somewhere else,” he said.

“Or you told her.”

“I didn’t—”

“You just did.”

Silence filled the small room.

Ethan stared at me. I watched the exact moment he realized he had given away more than he meant to. His throat moved. His hands flexed once at his sides.

I spoke before he could dig deeper.

“She’s using you,” I said calmly. “You run back to her with every conversation we have, and she feeds you just enough concern to keep you useful. Now you’re standing here warning me about a plan she hasn’t even put on paper yet. Do you hear how that sounds?”

“That’s not—”

“She’ll deny it, of course. She’ll say you’re confused. Or that you’re trying to cause problems between us. And you’ll believe her, because it’s easier than admitting you’re the one leaking information.”

Ethan’s jaw tightened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know she was the first person you went to the night I told you we were done.” I kept my voice quiet. “I know you’ve been in her apartment more nights than your own since then. And I know that right now you’re wondering whether she’s already planning to blame this conversation on you.”

His silence was answer enough.

I walked past him toward the door, then stopped with my hand on the handle.

“Next time she asks what I said, tell her this.” I looked back at him. “If she wants the warehouse holdings, she can take them through the board like everyone else. I’m done making it easy.”

I left him standing in the meeting room.

Upstairs, I sat at my desk and opened a new message to Chloe. I typed slowly, carefully.

I had an interesting conversation with Ethan. He seems very informed about plans that haven’t been shared yet. You might want to be more careful about what you discuss with him. He’s not as discreet as you think.

I read it once, then deleted the last sentence and rewrote it softer.

He’s very loyal to you. That’s admirable. I just hope he doesn’t accidentally create problems by speaking too freely.

I sent it.

Then I sat back and waited.

Seventeen minutes later my phone lit up with a message from Ethan.

Whatever she tells you, I didn’t mean to cause issues between you two.

I didn’t reply.

A few minutes after that, Chloe’s name appeared on the screen.

We need to talk. Privately.

I locked the phone and turned it face down.

The mistake had been small.

One detail spoken too early.

But it was enough.

Ethan would now wonder how much Chloe blamed him.

Chloe would now wonder how much Ethan had slipped.

And the small crack between them would widen every time they looked at each other and tried to decide who had been careless.

I opened the logistics file again and continued working.

Let them distrust each other.

I had other things to move.