Todos los capítulos de Billionaire Heir Stops Pretending: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

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?

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

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,

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-

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