Chapter 8

POV: Bridget

"Do not leave that room," Bridget said, reading the message aloud to her reflection in the full-length mirror.

She deleted the text, dropping her phone onto the vanity table. The guest wing of Shaw Tower smelled like expensive citrus and fresh paint. It was pristine, large, and completely isolated from the main residential quarters.

She walked to the glass wall that looked out over the city, watching the gray morning light hitting the lower ward docks across the river. It was nine o'clock. No one had called her. No one had brought a breakfast tray.

Bridget took a slow breath, smoothing down the front of her white silk blouse. She kept her makeup minimal, just a touch of tint on her lips. She needed to look like the woman Declan had originally agreed to marry—effortless, refined, and entirely distinct from the plain, heavy wool dresses Sloane favored.

She found Declan in the glass-walled study off the main gallery. He was sitting behind a black marble desk, his attention fixed on a financial tablet.

Bridget knocked twice against the open glass door. "Are we still avoiding each other?"

Declan didn't look up immediately. He finished scrolling through a line of text, then set the device flat on the marble. "You're supposed to be resting."

"My migraine cleared up the moment the papers stopped printing," Bridget said, stepping into the room. She kept her hands clasped loosely in front of her. "I wanted to apologize for the lounge. It was loud, I was frustrated, and Andrew Pierce is an idiot."

"Pierce is a liability," Declan said, his voice level. "And you gave him three hours of unrestricted access."

"Nothing happened, Declan."

"Nothing needed to happen," he said, leaning back in his chair. "The presence of my prospective bride in a competitor’s private lounge forty-eight hours before a major merger announcement is an automatic ten-point drop in consumer confidence if a single photo goes live. You know the rules of the transition."

Bridget made her voice smaller, dropping her chin slightly. "I know. I lost my temper because Sloane was sitting in my seat at the investor dinner."

"Sloane was fulfilling a structural necessity because you refused to answer your logistics manager," Declan said.

"She’s enjoying it too much," Bridget murmured, crossing her arms. "Have you seen her? She’s already moving her things into the primary suite. My mother told me she left the house at midnight with two suitcases."

Declan stood up, picking up his coffee mug. "Sloane is here because she understands the cost of a breach. You don't."

"Then let me show you I do," Bridget said, stepping into his path. "I know the Vance family. I know what the board wants to hear about the philanthropic allocation. Let me handle the charity luncheon on Thursday. Let me be the person people see next to you."

Declan studied her face for three long beats, his expression entirely unreadable. "You want to be useful, Bridget?"

"Yes."

"Then you will stay in this tower," Declan said. "You will clear every personal phone call through my assistant. You will attend the public events I assign to you, you will sit where the place cards dictate, and you will not offer a single unscripted remark to the press."

Bridget stared at him. "That sounds like house arrest."

"That is the price of keeping your family’s estate from entering probate before the weekend," Declan said, walking past her toward the hallway. "Breakfast is in the dining room. Your sister is already there."

Sloane was sitting at the far end of the long mahogany table when Bridget entered. A silver coffee service sat between them, surrounded by several stacks of unbound legal briefs. Sloane was marking a column with a black ink pen, her gray sweater swallowed by the high back of the chair.

"You're using his pen," Bridget said, sitting down two chairs away.

Sloane didn't look up from the page. "The ink doesn't smudge on the financial bond paper."

"You always did like playing the assistant," Bridget said, reaching for a piece of dry toast from the center platter. "Mother said you stayed up until two rewriting the compliance summaries."

"The compliance summaries were missing three major municipal exclusions," Sloane said, finally setting the pen down. "If Declan had signed them as they were, the state board would have audited the foundation by Tuesday."

"And you just love saving the day, don't you?"

"I love keeping our family out of bankruptcy court," Sloane said, her voice perfectly calm. "There is a difference."

Declan entered the room, his jacket off, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his forearms. He didn't look at Bridget as he sat at the head of the table. He reached directly for the pages Sloane had finished marking.

"Did you find the routing discrepancy in the third clause?" Declan asked.

"It’s on page fourteen," Sloane said, pointing with the tip of her finger. "The previous auditors used an outdated corporate identifier for the Boston clinic trust. I corrected the registration number."

Declan glanced at the page, then nodded once. "Good. I’ll have the legal team draft the amendment before the noon briefing."

Bridget watched them, her thumb pressing hard into the crust of her toast. Neither of them was smiling. There was no warmth in the exchange, no softness, but Declan was listening to her. He was waiting for her input before he made a move.

"Are you two going to ignore me all morning?" Bridget asked, leaning forward.

Declan didn't look up from the report. "Eat your breakfast, Bridget."

"I’m just trying to understand the new dynamic," Bridget said, her voice rising slightly. "Are you keeping him interested, Sloane? Or are you just his favorite paralegal now?"

Sloane picked up her coffee cup, her eyes holding Bridget’s across the silver service. "We are clearing the ledger, Bridget. That’s all."

"Right," Bridget muttered, standing up so fast her chair scraped against the hardwood. "Let me know when the script changes."

She walked out before either of them could reply, her heels clicking loudly against the marble of the gallery.

By noon, the isolation of the tower was clawing at her. She couldn't leave the floor without an escort, but the domestic staff ignored her, leaving her to wander the secondary rooms. She slipped into the small library on the second floor—a room Declan rarely used, mostly reserved for archival family documents and old corporate files.

Bridget began opening drawers behind the writing desk. She didn't know what she was looking for, but Sloane had been too steady at breakfast. Nobody was that calm unless they had already secured their position.

In the bottom drawer, tucked inside an old leather desk calendar from the Madden estate, she found a single slip of paper.

It was a bank wire confirmation.

Bridget pulled it out, her eyes scanning the small print. The transfer was dated four days before the wedding contract was ever signed. The sender was Sloane Madden. The recipient was the Boston Children’s Cardiac Care Unit. The amount was twenty-three thousand dollars—the exact figure Sloane had been moving from the family accounts the night before.

Bridget stared at the dates. Sloane hadn't stolen that money to run away from Declan. She had paid the clinic before the contract was even finalized. She had paid it while Bridget was still the intended bride.

"What did you do, Sloane?" Bridget whispered, folding the slip of paper and sliding it deep into her blouse pocket.

At eight o'clock that evening, Declan hosted a small dinner in the private salon for the regional transport director and his wife. Sloane sat to Declan's right, wearing a simple, dark silk dress that didn't draw attention. Bridget was placed at the far end of the table, next to the director's wife, who spent forty-five minutes discussing her daughter's equestrian summer camp.

Bridget smiled. She nodded. She played the part of the quiet, recovering sister perfectly.

And she watched.

She watched the way Sloane noted Declan’s slight nod toward the kitchen staff, signaling the next course without a word being spoken. She watched the way Declan leaned in to hear Sloane’s small comment about the port authority budget, his head tilted toward her just an inch.

When the guests finally rose to leave, the transport director shook Declan’s hand warmly. "You have a remarkable partner, Shaw. She knows more about our infrastructure bottlenecks than my chief of staff."

Declan looked back at Sloane, his hand resting briefly on the back of her chair. "Yes," he said. "She does."

Bridget waited until the elevator doors closed on the guests. The air on the glass terrace was freezing, the wind coming off the harbor sharp enough to sting her face, but she needed to breathe.

The glass door slid open behind her.

Sloane stepped out onto the concrete, her arms crossed over her chest against the cold. She didn't say anything. She just stood by the railing, looking down at the yellow lights of the traffic below.

"You knew about the Boston clinic three months ago," Bridget said, not turning around.

Sloane remained still. "Everyone knew Jamie was on the list, Bridget."

"No," Bridget said, turning to face her sister. "We knew he was sick. We didn't know you were moving money into their foundation before Declan ever offered the contract. You didn't take this deal to save the family. You took it because you were already drowning."

Sloane turned her head, her face completely pale under the terrace lights. "The family estate was gone the moment Father died, Bridget. You were just too busy choosing bridesmaid dresses to look at the bank statements."

"You used me," Bridget said, stepping closer, her hand dropping into her pocket to touch the folded wire receipt. "You let me throw a tantrum at that lounge because you wanted Declan to see me as a liability. You wanted him to pick you."

Sloane looked at her, her voice dropping into that flat, dangerous rhythm from the kitchen. "I wanted my brother to have a heartbeat by the end of the winter. If that makes me a monster to you, I can live with that."

Bridget smiled, the wind pulling strands of hair across her mouth as she took the folded slip of paper from her pocket and held it between two fingers.

"Declan thinks you're the honest one," Bridget said softly. "Let's see how he feels when he finds out you were stealing from the Madden accounts before he ever gave you permission to touch his name."

Sloane’s eyes fixed on the white slip of paper, her fingers tightening against her arms. "Bridget, give me that."

Bridget stepped back toward the glass door, her smile widening as she saw the first real crack in her sister's composure. "Goodnight, sister."