บททั้งหมดของ The Replacement Wife : บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

Catherine Rothwell has the kind of beauty that makes you instantly check your reflection. Polished, effortless, expensive. And I'm standing here in yoga pants and one of Dominic's old shirts. I step back and let her in anyway. She walks into the entrance hall and looks around with the practiced neutrality of someone trained not to let spaces impress them, which means she's impressed. Her perfume is something French and subtle, the kind that doesn't announce itself until you're already in a room with it. "I debated coming," she says, turning to face me. "James said I shouldn't interfere. That it wasn't our business." She pauses. "But it felt like the kind of thing you'd want to know." She found out two days ago. Isabelle, she says, reached out through a mutual friend, angling for a lunch that turned into something else entirely. The questions started casually. How was Dominic seeming lately? Was he happy? And his new wife, the one from the wedding, did she seem genuine? Was the ma

CHAPTER 24: VICTOR'S CONFESSIONVictor Laurent has always seemed invincible. Until now, sitting in his leather chair, looking every one of his sixty-eight years.His study smells like old books and cedar and the particular weight of a room where serious things have been decided for decades. He doesn't sit behind the desk. He takes the armchair by the window, the one that faces the garden, and Dominic and I sit across from him on the small sofa, close enough that our knees almost touch.Victor looks at his hands for a moment. Then he begins."Stellar Manufacturing approached me in the spring of 2017," he says. "Contract terms that made no sense at market rate. Pricing forty percent below competitors for the same materials. Guaranteed delivery windows. No penalties clauses." He pauses. "Every flag you'd expect. I saw them.""But you signed," Dominic says."I signed." His voice is even. No self-pity in it, which somehow makes it harder to hear. "Helena's diagnosis came six we

CHAPTER 26: THE BOARD VOTEThe boardroom where I first proved myself now feels like a courtroom, and we're on trial.The media is already there when we arrive. Two lines of cameras and recorders and people holding phones aloft, pressed against the security barriers on both sides of the entrance. The questions start before we're out of the car."Dominic! Are you resigning?""Iris! Was any of it real?""Was it worth it?"Security moves us through the gap between them and I keep my eyes forward and my chin level and I think about what it felt like to walk into this building on my first day, nervous and trying not to show it. That was simpler. That day I only had to prove I could do the work. Today I have to prove we're human beings worth keeping around.Inside, the lobby feels different. Not hostile exactly, but held. People at desks and by the elevator banks make their choices quickly: some look directly at us, small nods, expressions that mean something supportive without words. Others

CHAPTER 28: ELEANOR'S REVEALEleanor Hartley stands in our home like she owns it, which is impressive considering she's supposed to be in jail awaiting trial.The two guards flanking her are court-appointed, not ours. She has a folder of papers under her arm and the expression of someone arriving at a meeting she scheduled, not one she crashed. Her bail conditions apparently include supervised home visits for document review with her legal team, and someone in her lawyer's office had arranged this address as the location.We forgot. In everything else, we forgot she was coming."How are you out?" Dominic says. His voice has the flat quality it gets when he's managing something he didn't anticipate."Bail." Eleanor smooths the front of her jacket with one hand. "Very expensive bail. A friend was generous."She doesn't say who. The way she doesn't say it suggests the information is a card she's keeping.Rebecca has gone completely still beside me. I can feel it in the way her arm, which

CHAPTER 30: UNDER SIEGEThe FBI arrives at dawn with a plan I hate and no better alternatives.Moreno lays it out at the kitchen table while the sky outside is still grey. Coffee going cold in front of all of us, nobody drinking it."The estate is too large to secure adequately," she says. "Too many entry points, too much perimeter, and last night proved the threat is active and professional." She looks at Rebecca first, then at me. "We need you both in a controlled location until the trial concludes.""A safe house," Dominic says."Yes.""And you want to split us up."Moreno's expression acknowledges this is the part nobody likes. "Separating targets makes simultaneous attack significantly harder. Rebecca is the primary witness. The threat is aimed at her. Having Iris at a separate location reduces the exposure for both.""No," Dominic says. Flat, no negotiation in it.Moreno looks at him for a moment. "Mr. Laurent.""I'm not separating from my wife when there's an active t