All Chapters of The Billion Dollar Marriage : Chapter 91 - Chapter 99

Webb was on the phone with Eric for forty minutes.She tracked it from her desk. The call appeared on the office system and she watched the timer and worked through the Henderson June close.When the call ended Eric came to her doorway."Conference room," he said. "Now."She followed him. He closed the door. They sat at the same end of the table — not the usual briefing positions. A conversation."Webb says the argument is legally thin but not impossible," he said. "The original contract is damaging in the wrong hands. If the uncle's lawyers can demonstrate the marriage was entered into purely for the inheritance — that it was a transaction — then the transfer can be challenged again."She looked at the table."The interview documentation," she said."Strong. Webb is confident. But the contract itself is the problem. The existence of the penalty clause. The specific language." He looked at her. "Someone who did not see the marriage develop would read that contract and see a transactio

The next three weeks were the most focused she had been since the early days of the arrangement. She built a preparation file the way she built everything — methodically, without gaps. She identified every board member and their likely position. She pulled the interview documentation and the Webb assessment and organized it into the most compelling possible sequence. She researched the specific legal argument the uncle's lawyers were making and identified its weaknesses with the specific precision of someone who had been reading contracts for four years. She did all of this while managing morning sickness with ginger biscuits and ginger tea and the particular determination of a person whose body was doing a great deal of work without being asked to explain itself. The nausea was worse in the mornings and better by ten. She arrived at eight and managed the first two hours carefully and by ten she was at full capacity. No one at the office noticed. She was very good at what she did a

She told Victoria about the pregnancy on a Saturday. Not because the timing was ideal — the board meeting was two weeks away and nothing about the timing was ideal. But because Victoria was going to find out and Alison had decided, weeks ago, that the people who deserved to know should hear it from her directly. Victoria was at her house when Alison arrived. Eric was not with her — this was Alison's conversation. They sat in the sitting room. Tea was brought. Two women who had navigated a great deal and were now, tentatively, something closer to honest with each other. "I have something to tell you," Alison said. "About the family." Victoria looked at her. Alison told her. Victoria was very still through the telling. When Alison finished the sitting room was quiet. Victoria looked at the window. At the garden. Then she looked at Alison. Her expression was complicated. Something that might have been shock. Something that was definitely calculation about what this meant for the

She told Eric about Victoria's visit when she got home. Not the Thursday lunch — she had already told him about that. The visit that had happened on the morning of the board meeting, when Victoria had appeared at the building lobby at nine-fifteen and asked to speak with Alison directly. She had not told him at the time because the board meeting was in ninety minutes and she had not wanted to add anything to his morning. She told him now. "She came to the building," he said. "Yes. She was waiting in the lobby. She wanted to tell me that whatever the board decided, she was going to be different. She said it without managing it. In the lobby, at nine-fifteen, before the meeting." He was very still. "What did you say," he said. "I said I knew," Alison said. "Because I did." He looked at the kitchen counter. "She has never—" He stopped. "She has never come to me that way. Unmanaged. Without preparation." He looked at Alison. "She came to you." "Yes," Alison said. He held her ga