Home / Billionaire Heir Stops Pretending / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of Billionaire Heir Stops Pretending: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

10 Chapters

Chapter 1

The announcement cut through the quiet store.Every customer stopped mid-aisle at once.Carts swung around. Baskets came up.Within seconds the whole floor was pouring toward the fresh-food section.Phones came out everywhere.Every camera in the building pointed at Zach Turner, standing in front of the beef case in a skin-tight tracksuit."Hold on. That's the owner's boyfriend, and he just hit her own father?""There's no way. That's insane.""He's dressed like he's somebody, too. How do you do something that disgusting?""Film it, film it. This is the best thing I've seen all year."The muttering thickened around him.Zach's face went from arrogant to red in about two seconds."You lying piece of trash!"What are you saying? Shut your mouth!"He screamed it and threw himself at the checkout counter, grabbing for the microphone in my hand.I stepped aside.He went past me and nearly went down.I tightened my grip on the mic and watched him stumble upright."Nonsense?

Chapter 2

"Take it off him! Hit him!" Zach shouted from behind the line, hopping on his toes. "Whatever happens, happens. I'll cover it."The guards set their jaws and came in again.In the middle of the shoving, one of them put a hand on Walter and threw him back.His feet went out from under him and he hit the floor hard.And the beautiful paper box he'd been holding against his chest all morning rolled out of his arms.The lid came apart.Inside was a princess cake, the kind you order weeks out — spun sugar, hand-shaped, the whole thing built like a small monument.He'd been up before the sun to get it. He'd taken two buses downtown to the bakery everyone was lined up for and stood in the heat for three straight hours, just to bring home a limited-edition birthday cake for his five-year-old granddaughter.He'd carried it the entire way with both arms around it, terrified something would jostle it.Now it was on the floor and the sugar princess had snapped clean in half."My cake," h

Chapter 3

Watching Walter come apart put a look on Zach's face that was almost obscene with satisfaction.He pulled the newest phone on the market out of his designer bag and waved it in front of the old man."You heard her, didn't you?"Claire doesn't care whether the two of you live or die."There's one person she cares about, and you're looking at him."Then he called her, right in front of us.Speakerphone again.This time she picked up on the first ring."Hi?"The woman who'd had no patience at all for her own father thirty seconds ago now sounded like someone else entirely. Soft. Warm.Zach slid instantly into a wounded little voice, thick with fake tears."Baby, come downstairs. Please."She panicked immediately, and you could hear how much of it was real."Zach? Something's wrong with your voice. What happened?"Don't be scared. Take your time and tell me.""There are two crazy men in the store," he said, sniffling, watching me the whole time. "They're screaming at me. The

Chapter 4

To kill the situation fast and save the deal she could already taste, Claire did something genuinely monstrous.She spun around, put herself in front of Zach, pointed at her father and me, and raised her voice for the whole crowd."Everyone, please, this is a misunderstanding. Stop filming."These two men are not my family."The floor went dead quiet."They were hired by a competitor to stage a scene in my store."They're here to destroy our reputation."Walter's eyes went wide. His whole body was trembling when he raised his hand and pointed at her."You monster. You cold, heartless little monster."I'm your father. I am your father."And for this man, you'll stand there and say you don't know me?""Shut your mouth, you crazy old man."Her face twisted into something I'd never seen on it before. She shoved him back down to the floor with both hands, then wheeled on the guards."Are all of you dead? What are you standing around for?"Get packing tape. Tape their mouths sh

Chapter 5

Nobody in the building made a sound.Claire's mind had simply stopped."Mr. Ford?" Her lips were moving before the rest of her caught up. "What do you mean, Mr. Ford?"Her eyes went back and forth between Vivian and me and couldn't settle on either.Zach looked worse. His whole face had locked up.He tugged at Claire's sleeve and started stammering."Baby, she's got the wrong guy, right? She has to."That's your broke husband. The one who does the laundry. How could he possibly be—""Close your mouth."Diane Coyle, Vivian's chief of staff, had already stepped forward. Her voice went out across the floor like a blade."The man standing in front of you is Ethan Ford."He is the sole heir to Ford Holdings, and he owns the ground this entire luxury complex is built on."Now somebody explain to me who gave you permission to lay hands on a Ford, on Ford property."The crowd came apart.The same people who'd been enjoying a cheating scandal five minutes earlier went very quiet,

Chapter 6

Claire stared at the ownership file on that screen, and every trace of life went out of her face.For years she'd told herself the investment came because someone recognized her talent. She'd told herself she'd climbed out of where she started on her own two feet. She'd bragged to Zach, more than once, about building the whole thing from nothing."No."Her voice cracked open."That isn't real. You're lying to me. You've been lying to me!"Zach, who still hadn't worked out what kind of room he was standing in, decided to argue."So what if you put the money in? Claire's the legal representative! She has every right to run this store however she wants, and you can't do a thing about it!""Is that right?"I laughed at him the way you laugh at something slow.Then I called Daniel Shaw, Ford Holdings' general counsel, and put him on speaker where everyone could hear it."Daniel. Start the emergency protocol."One. Remove Claire Bennett as legal representative and strip every mana

Chapter 7

It took less than half an hour for the answer to come down from the second floor.Martin Reeves, the lead auditor, came down the stairs with a tablet in his hand and pushed his findings straight onto the big screen without being asked."Mr. Ford. Ms. Lane."He pushed his glasses up and read the charges off in a voice with absolutely nothing in it."On preliminary review, there is a substantial hole in these accounts."Over the past six months, Claire Bennett and Zach Turner used falsified procurement contracts to move five point three million dollars out of the store's accounts and into Mr. Turner's personal offshore accounts. Twenty-seven separate transfers."That constitutes criminal misappropriation at the most serious tier."Zach's face emptied out. His knees gave and he sat straight down on the floor."There's more," Martin said, and changed the screen.Inspection reports came up, one after another, then the purchase records behind them."To paper over that five-million-

Chapter 8

Sirens came up the street and got louder until they filled the building.Police in full gear came through the broken entrance with food-safety inspectors right behind them, and they had the floor under control in under a minute."That's enough! Both of you, hands where I can see them!"An officer barked it and they pulled Claire and Zach apart by force, still clawing at each other's eyes on the ground, and put cuffs on both of them.The cold metal closing on her wrist finally brought Claire back into her own body.She looked at the armed officers standing around her. Then she looked at me, watching her without a word.And she was afraid.She wrenched herself out of the officer's grip and dropped onto her knees in front of me, hard enough that her forehead came down on broken glass, and she didn't seem to feel it. She put her head to the floor and sobbed."Ethan. Ethan, I was wrong."I know I was wrong, I swear to God I do."Please. After three years, after everything — just t

Chapter 9

Three months later.The courtroom didn't have an empty seat in it.I sat in the front row, on the plaintiff's side.And sitting next to me, running the whole proceeding as Ford Holdings' retained lead counsel, was Vivian Lane.Claire and Zach sat at the defense table in prison jumpsuits with their hair cropped down to nothing, and neither of them looked like they'd slept in a month. There was nothing in their faces but fear.The trial had come to the closing arguments, and this was where it got bloody.Zach's attorney was working hard to paint him as a soft-headed gym trainer who'd been blinded by love and had no idea what the company was doing — the weak accomplice, worth a lighter sentence."Your Honor, my client is a personal trainer. He has no financial background whatsoever. He doesn't understand accounting. Every one of those transfers was executed by Ms. Bennett using his account, and he had no knowledge—""Objection."Vivian rose without hurrying and didn't bother look

Chapter 10

The day after sentencing, I had Daniel take the divorce agreement into the prison.In the visiting room, Claire signed her name with both cuffed hands shaking.When I came back out through the gates the sunlight was almost painful, and I stood there and took one long breath.Three years of weight came off my chest and stayed off.Whatever that woman and I had been, it was over.A year went by faster than I expected.In that year I took full control of Ford Holdings.The supermarket that scandal had killed, I tore down to the studs and rebuilt from nothing.I brought in Vivian's fund as the lead strategic investor and built a new fresh-food brand on it — fully transparent sourcing, end to end, built around high-grade organic produce.With Ford capital behind it and Vivian reading the board three moves ahead, it went from one location to national coverage inside twelve months and became the largest fresh-food supplier in the country.At the end of that year, Ford Holdings held

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