A trick

“Can you please leave now?” Ariel stood up, and moved away from her seat, staring at Ophelia with hard eyes. 

“You witch.” Ophelia cursed, straightening up.

“No uh.” Sullivan gripped her arm, and looked up at her with a dark smile. “Not in my presence.”

“You tricked me?” Ophelia closed the floor, looking at Ariel in disbelief. 

“For what you said earlier, I should sue you for slander, but I think the Tucker have already taken enough punch to their vault.”

“I would sue her, sweetheart.” Sullivan threw Ophelia’s hand out of his grip. “Who says she can talk to my wife like that?”

“What exactly is going on here?” One of the boldest board members finally spoke up, and Sullivan turned surprised eyes to the man who shrunk a little. 

Then he smiled, that deceptive smile that Blaine knew so well.

“Ah, happy to explain,” he said, clapping his hands together in delight. “Although you all pretend not to remember, there has been a long-standing rivalry between the Sullivans and Tuckers. "We are quite hot for each other.” Then he stopped and with an even brighter smile, added, "shares. Just the shares.”

“To discourage even more dirty tricks, the company imposed a law where if any of us tried to create counterfeit shares, we would lose 5% of what we own,” he said, and Blaine saw some of the people here were surprised. 

Of course, not many people know this. 

Only the ones who had been here since the time his grandfather still worked here knew this.

“Miss World here just tried to claim a position at this table with counterfeit share certificates.” 

“I was tricked!” Ophelia yelled, and Blaine almost felt sorry for her. 

She was a mess and just seemed to be making things worse and worse.

Ariel moved closer to her to whisper something and Blaine saw Ophelia’s eyes widen, and then she was filled with rage. 

Some security officials who had been waiting by the door the whole time, finally appeared and, together with Sullivan’s guards, managed to restrain her and began to pull her out.

Blaine did not lift a finger, so his guards stood down, although he saw the confusion and hurt in their eyes.

He beckoned to Ethan, “The document I asked for yesterday ready?” His voice was low.

“Yes chairman.” Ethan whispered back.

“Cut that out,” Blaine winced in irritation. “I am chairman of nothing. Print a copy out and bring it out to me in the car.” 

He stood up, looked around the table, gave Ariel a long look, and then bowed to the people on the table and walked out. 

“He did not even say a word.” He heard a faint whisper as he walked out, and his mind went back to the whisper Ariel said she had heard just before she went upstairs. 

A whisper that proved that if Ophelia had not hurt her and their baby, someone else would have.

So what did they expect him to say now? And how could he even blame Ariel no matter how much he wanted to. 

He just had to trust that she knew what she was doing, for theirs and their son’s sake.

Sullivan was a dangerous man to have all this power. 

The Tuckers could barely protect themselves with them as equals, but with the Sullivans many rungs higher now?

“Take your hands off her.” he said finally, and the security looked back, at last noticing him. 

Ophelia looked at him with mad eyes.

“You are a pity of a husband. It’s clear now why your whore chose Kan Sullivan over you.” 

Blaine said nothing as he watched her. 

She stared at him with venom some more and then pushed the button to the elevator. 

They rode down together and as they walked out, everyone smiled and bowed to them.

Clearly they had not heard. He was wondering how the way the Tuckers were treated would change now. Who would be loyal and who wouldn’t?

He walked beside Ophelia and did not turn away as she walked towards her car. 

She glanced back at him, obviously puzzled. But she did not say anything and got in the backseat.

He walked around the car and asked her chauffeur not to move, before he got in the backseat with her. As he settled in, he met her crying. 

“Do you hate me so much that you would let me get humiliated in public?”

He just watched her, thinking about the countless times her tears had moved him to pity in the past. 

“I did this for you.” She sobbed harder. “The least you could have done was stand up for me the way Kan Sullivan does for his wife.” 

Blaine dipped his hand in his jacket and pulled out a handkerchief, then stretched it out to her. 

She shook her head, still crying, but he just held it there till she took it. She was still his daughter’s mother.

She had no idea how much that title saved her. 

He finally saw Ethan step out and looked around and one of the guards waved him to the car they were sitting in. 

Ethan knocked, opened the door and bowed.

Blaine smiled and took the brown envelope from him, and turned around to Ophelia, who was still crying and sniffing into the handkerchief. 

He pulled out the divorce document and waited till she quieted down.

Then he placed it on her lap. “We can do this quickly, and you can go be with your Italian lover who wants you enough to murder me.”

Ophelia’s head snapped up, and she looked at him with wide eyes. 

He nodded at her. He knew. 

Ariel had told him about the voice she had heard, and it did not take him long to realize the man wanted him dead too. It was too convenient an opportunity to pass up.

“Or you can put up a fight and I will send a copy to you every day, and even to the National leader, till you sign the document.”