Too Late, Mr. Ellison: The Wife Who Built His Empire のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 1 - チャプター 10

Juno's POVSomeone was sitting in my chair.It was seven on Friday, the family dinner at Grant's townhouse. Margaret's rule. In five years of marriage, I had never missed one.I stopped in the dining room doorway with my coat still on. Rain ran off my sleeve and dripped onto the marble.Tatum Rhodes sat at my husband's right hand, in the seat that had been mine since my wedding day. She worked for Margaret's charity. She was twenty-six to my twenty-eight, and she laughed at everything Grant said."You're late," Margaret said from the head of the table.I looked at the gold clock on the sideboard. "It's one minute past seven.""Then you are one minute late." She didn't look up from her wine. "Agnes. Set a place for Juno at the end, by the kitchen door. Where the help can reach her."Sloane smiled over her glass, red lipstick, sharp black bob. Grant studied his plate.Agnes Moran laid a plate and a fork at the far end of the table, beside the swinging door. She did not meet my eyes. In

Juno's POVDee Okafor opened her apartment door in a bright yellow robe and a silk bonnet, with the face of a woman who had been asleep two minutes ago."It's eleven in the morning on a Saturday," she said. "Somebody better be dead.""My marriage."Dee took one look at my coat, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me inside.Her Brooklyn apartment was small, warm and loud with color. Orange cushions on the couch. A pot of last night's jollof rice on the stove, filling the room with peppers and fried meat.We had met on the first day of law school. I was the best in our class for two years, until I quit to become Mrs. Grant Ellison. Dee finished top instead. Now she was a criminal defense lawyer, the kind prosecutors in the borough hated to see walk into court.She was also the only person alive who knew I was Ledger.I sat at her kitchen table and told her everything. Tatum in my chair. The diamonds falling out of my bag. The papers. Grant saying the Seventy-Ninth Street apartment was more th

Grant's POVBy Monday morning, I had emailed Ledger five times.Ledger had answered once, on Friday night. Five words. Ledger is no longer available.I treated it as a negotiation. Everyone has a number. On Saturday I offered double. On Sunday night I attached the full Brooks contract and wrote: Review this immediately. Name any price.Nothing came back.At eleven o'clock I sat at the head of the boardroom table on the fifty-first floor. Twelve board members waited for me to announce that the Brooks Building belonged to Ellison Group.My mother had taken the chair at the far end. Margaret Ellison, sixty, in the pearls my father had bought her. Thirty years on this board, and she watched me with the same cold boredom she always had."Well, Grant?""The Brooks family signs today. Our lawyers are finishing the closing papers."As far as I knew, that was true. For years Ledger had told me which parts of a contract were dangerous and which were safe. I had stopped reading the details mysel

Juno's POVIt was half past ten on Tuesday morning, and for a second nobody in the box moved.Ronan straightened up behind my chair. "He's here? In my building?""Just inside the front door." Marcus held up his phone. "He's got a photo of a woman walking in here yesterday morning. Gray suit, black bag, hair pinned up." He looked at me. "It's you, J. He says he isn't leaving without you."Ronan turned his head and looked down at me. He didn't ask. Grant Ellison was downstairs asking for his wife, and the woman in the photo was sitting right in front of him.I set my pen on the notebook. My hands were steady. I made sure of it."I'll handle it.""Like hell you will." Ronan was already at the door.I went after him. Marcus pressed his back against the glass to let us pass. The metal stairs rang under our feet all the way down.The whole deal floor was watching the front door. Nobody pretended to work. A few people had phones out under their desks, and a low whisper ran from desk to desk.

Juno's POVDee left at a quarter past eleven that Tuesday night, after making me promise three times that I wouldn't open the door for anyone.Before I had put the chain back on, my phone buzzed on the bed. A text from Agnes Moran. In all my years in that house, she had never once messaged me.Agnes: Mrs. Ellison, it is Agnes. Miss Sloane came into the kitchen on Monday and asked about your old silver laptop. How long you had it, and if you ever left it at home. I said I did not know. Please be careful. Please do not tell anyone I wrote to you.Agnes had not broken one of Margaret's rules in twenty years. I thought about Friday night, when the diamonds hit my plate and she looked at Sloane before she looked at the floor.I typed Thank you and nothing more, so that nothing I wrote could cost her the job.At half past eleven a fist hit the door. It kept hitting, loud enough to wake the whole floor.I grabbed the desk lamp by its neck and looked through the peephole.Ronan. Hair wet from