All Chapters of MY HUSBAND KILLED OUR MARRIAGE. I BURIED HIS EMPIRE. : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

AdrianI let the call ring.One. Two. Three.Not because I didn’t hear it. I did. Whitmore’s name on the screen, loud and insistent. I let it ring to give him the impression I was busy. That I was working on something important. A subtle reminder that I had priorities that didn’t begin and end with his daughter and his merger.It was petty. I knew it. But it was all I had left that felt like control.On the fourth ring, I picked up.“Mr. Whitmore,” I said.His voice came through, but it wasn’t the same voice from the club. At the club he’d been smooth. In charge. Now there was something else under it.Uncertainty.“Adrian,” he said. “My investigators found something. About Lancaster’s financial exposure. The risk.”My stomach dropped.Investigators.He had hired private investigators. To look into my company.Which meant he didn’t trust me. Not fully. Not ever. If he was digging into my books behind my back, what else was he digging into?My house? My phone? Celeste?The feeling was l

VivianMy drive home was borderline reckless.I don't even remember leaving the office. One moment Damien's hand was on the door, closing it gently, and the next I was behind the wheel with my engine screaming. I ran two reds on 6th. I took the turn to the estate road so fast the tires screeched. My phone was beeping non-stop on the passenger seat — traffic charges, automated fines, _You have been fined for exceeding speed limit, You have been fined for running a red light._ I ignored every single one.My grandfather's estate was lit up like it was hosting a gala. That had never happened at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. Every outside light was on, the driveway floodlights, the lights on the second floor balcony. The sight of it made my hand grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles went white and I swerved hard past the gardener who was standing by the gate, staring at me.I didn't even park properly. I left the car at an angle and got out.The butler — Mr. Albie — was at the front door and

VivianDamien arrived at almost midnight.I had been sitting on the top step of the porch for hours, my phone dead in my hand, staring at the driveway. The estate was finally quiet. I had told the staff to turn off most of the lights after I sealed the news, and the darkness made the place feel like it was holding its breath.When his headlights finally cut through the gate, I stood up.We both stood on the porch for a while just staring at each other. The porch light was casting a soft yellow circle over us and the crickets were loud. I wanted to say something — I'm sorry for what I said, thank you for coming, I was scared — but I just couldn't find the words. My throat closed every time I tried.He looked tired. His shirt was untucked from earlier, his hair messy like he had been running his hands through it.Then he raised his hand. He was holding a white plastic bag with grease stains at the bottom.He showed me the Chinese takeout he had brought, saying that he figured that I had

VivianThe burial for my grandfather had been quick.That was how he wanted it. He had told me once, years ago, when we were sitting in his garden and he was pruning his roses, that he didn't want a circus when he died. No three-day wake, no politicians fighting to give speeches, no crowd of business partners pretending to weep while counting his shares. Just earth and quiet. I respected it. I made sure it happened that way.What I didn't respect was the flippancy of my extended family members who had found their way to the Sinclair estate upon hearing the man had died.They arrived in town cars. They arrived with luggage. They claimed they were grieving, their performative crying echoing down the marble hallway of the main house, but I knew what they really looked like.They all looked like blood-sucking leeches to me.I watched them from the upstairs window. My Uncle Richard with his third wife, my Uncle Michael who I hadn't seen since I was sixteen, my Aunt Louise who had once told

VivianBelieving the lawyer had been what I tried to accomplish for the latter half of the day and I still couldn't wrap my head around it even after I was shown the papers.I sat in the passenger seat of Damien's car and stared at the photocopy Mr. Henderson had pressed into my hands before we left. The paper was crisp. The signature at the bottom was my grandfather's, shaky but unmistakably his. That same signature that used to be on my birthday cards, on the checks he wrote for my school fees, on the deed he gave me when I was twelve and told me this little rose garden was now mine.Why would my grandpa do that?It didn't make sense. He knew what his family was like. He knew my uncles had been waiting for him to die for ten years. He knew my aunt kept a spreadsheet of his properties. He knew that leaving everything to me was not a gift. It was painting a target on my back.Damien had immediately brought me away from the estate while the argument with the lawyer had reached a climax