Chapter 4

 The Truth About Claire

Vivienne didn't tell Damian about the pregnancy text.

Not yet. Not until she knew for herself whether it was true. "This is insane," Renata said, watching her friend pace the studio floor at midnight, laptop open, a half-eaten sandwich forgotten on the workbench beside a painting that had been waiting three days now for attention it wasn't getting. "You're going to track down his ex-fiancée. Based on a text from a stranger. Because a woman who got fired from his company told you to."

"I have five days to decide if I'm marrying this man," Vivienne said. "I'm not signing anything until I know if he has a baby on the way that he doesn't know about."

"And if he does know? If this is exactly the trap Sabrina said it was?"

"Then I walk away and figure out some other way to save the studio." It took her two hours of digging through old gala photos and society page articles to find a name, Claire Bennett now went by Claire Whitfield, married eight months ago to a hedge fund manager named Trevor Whitfield, living in Brooklyn Heights. It took another hour of pacing outside her building at nine the next morning, coffee going cold in her hand, before Vivienne worked up the nerve to actually ring the buzzer. A woman answered the door in a soft gray sweater, one hand resting on a very visibly pregnant stomach, blond hair pulled back, looking confused and mildly alarmed at the stranger on her doorstep.

"Can I help you?"

"I'm so sorry to just show up like this," Vivienne said in a rush. "My name is Vivienne Marsh. I know this is going to sound insane, but I need to ask you something about Damian Voss."

Claire's whole body went still.

For a second, Vivienne thought she was going to slam the door. Instead, Claire looked past her, down the empty street, and then stepped back, holding the door open.

"You'd better come in," she said quietly. "I think I know exactly why you're here." They sat in Claire's kitchen, tea going cold between them, while Claire told her the whole story, not the version Sabrina had given her, not a secondhand rumor filtered through someone else's anger, but the real thing, straight from the person who'd lived it. I signed his contract two years ago, Claire said. "Eighteen months, exactly like he's probably offered you. I knew what it was going in. I told myself I could handle it." She wrapped both hands around her mug. "I couldn't. I fell for him anyway, somewhere around month four, and I spent the rest of it hoping he'd fall too. He didn't. Or if he did, he never let himself show it. When the eighteen months ended, he ended it exactly on schedule, exactly like he promised he would from day one. I hated him for a long time for being that honest about something that hurt so much." "Sabrina Cole told me you're pregnant," Vivienne said carefully. "She implied the timeline made it look like..."

Claire actually laughed, sharp and a little bitter. "Sabrina Cole has hated Damian since he fired her for leaking confidential contract details to a gossip website for money. She didn't get let go for 'restructuring.' She got let go for selling private legal documents. mine actually, is one of the ones she leaked, which is presumably how she still has a copy of it lying around to wave in your face." Claire's hand moved protectively over her stomach. "This baby is my husband's. Trevor's. We got married eight months ago. I have never once, not for a single day since the divorce, been pregnant by Damian Voss, and I would be furious on his behalf if I weren't so relieved someone finally warned you what she's actually up to before you signed anything based on her lies."

Vivienne felt something cold settle in her stomach not relief, not yet, something more complicated. Then why would she make that up?

"Because someone paid her to," Claire said simply. "I'd bet my house on it. There's exactly one person in that family who benefits from Damian staying single past his birthday, and it isn't Sabrina Cole."

"Étienne," Vivienne whispered.

"There it is." Claire's eyes sharpened. "Be careful, Vivienne. Damian is a lot of things cold, controlling, terrible at saying what he actually feels until it's almost too late to matter. but in two years, I never once caught him in an actual lie. Étienne is a different animal entirely. He'll use anyone. Including a fired lawyer with a grudge. Including you, if it gets him what he wants."

"What does he want?"

"The company," Claire said. "All of it. He's wanted it since we were all twenty-two years old and Damian got named heir instead of him. He's been waiting twelve years for one deadline Damian couldn't meet. Don't hand it to him because a stranger sent you a scary text." Vivienne sat in stunned silence, her whole understanding of the last two days rearranging itself. She'd walked in ready to hate a man for something he never did. She was walking out having learned that the real danger wasn't the man she was supposed to marry, it was the one standing behind the curtain, pulling strings, willing to burn anyone who got in his way.

She stood to leave, and Claire caught her wrist gently at the door.

"One more thing," Claire said. "For what it's worth, the way you asked about him. The way your voice changed when you said his name. That's not how someone talks about a business contract." A small, sad smile. "Be smarter than I was. Or don't. Honestly? Even knowing how it ended, I still don't regret falling for him. Just go in with your eyes open. That's all I ever wish someone had told me.

Vivienne walked three blocks before she let herself cry not out of sadness, exactly, more like the sheer overwhelming weight of everything she'd learned in the space of one morning finally catching up to her all at once. She pulled out her phone and called the only person who'd know what to do next.

"Renata. I need you to find out everything you can about a company called Adler and Finch. I think Damian's own lawyer might be working both sides.

"On it," Renata said instantly, no questions asked, the sound of typing already starting in the background. "Vivi, are you okay?"

"I don't know," Vivienne admitted. "I think I just found out the real villain of this story isn't who I thought it was."

She was three steps from the subway when her phone buzzed. She expected Renata. It wasn't.

It was Damian.

Something's happened. Étienne just called an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning. He's telling everyone he has proof the marriage clause is being used to "hide financial mismanagement." I don't know what he thinks he has, but if he convinces even three board members before I sign a marriage certificate, I lose the company regardless of what you decide. I need an answer, Vivienne. Not Friday. Tonight.

Vivienne stood frozen on the sidewalk, the same sidewalk, it felt like, where she'd stood two days ago reading a very different, very frightening text. Except this time, she knew exactly who the enemy was. She just didn't know if she had enough time left to stop him