Chapter 10
LAUREL
My ex-husband is waiting in the kitchen when I get home the next morning.
Grant hasn’t shaved. He’s wearing the old gray sweatpants I’ve begged him to throw away for years and a T-shirt, his coffee untouched beside him. He looks wrecked, and I know exactly what sleeplessness does to him.
Once, I would’ve crossed the room and taken his face in my hands.
Right now, I look at him and think, well. That’s unfortunate.
I notice he’s taken the gardenias out of the blue vase and put them in fresh water after they started to droop. It’s a telltale sign of Grant spiraling: burn down the house, remember to water the flowers.
“Where were you?”
I set my purse on the island. “Out.”
“Two nights?”
“Strong work. Nothing gets past you.”
His jaw flexes, but he doesn’t take the bait. “Were you with Beckett? Did you go fuck him to retaliate? Jesus, Laurel. Is that what you need now? Another man to make you feel wanted?”
Ah. Imagine thinking the bastard of a man you married still has an iota of humanity in him. Enough to ask, Are you okay? Did you cry?
I know. Hilarious.
Teeth clenched, I turn to him. “You cheated on me, and now your sleazy, puny dick has the audacity to be jealous?” I let out a humorless laugh. “That is almost impressive.”
“I’m not jealous!”
“Sure. Must be those pruney balls acting up.”
He growls, fists balled at his sides. “Watch your mouth, Laurel. I’m asking because I know Vale. He’s not to be trusted.”
Oh, the irony.
“Do you?”
Grant pushes away from the counter. “He’s had his eye on your catalogue since the first time he heard you play, and who knows if that’s all he was after?
Maybe he didn’t give a damn about your music and the whole fucking point was getting you into bed.
Maybe he’s been waiting seven years for the chance to fuck my wife! ”
I smile at him, a pang cutting through my chest. “Funny. At least he asked.”
Grant’s face hardens. “You have no idea what that man is like.”
“I know he sent me two offers you decided I shouldn’t see.”
“Laurel—”
“And I know you paid Daniel Price one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars nineteen days after he turned the second one down for me.” Grant’s blue eyes go wide, the expression so nakedly guilty I almost laugh. “Say something, darling.”
He drags a hand over his mouth. “Daniel did consulting work for the label.”
“Of course he did. What consulting?”
“Artist development. Strategy. He had relationships we needed.”
“This should be easy. Tell me what he delivered for one hundred and twenty-five grand.”
Grant peers out the window. I almost smile. I’ve watched him make that exact move twice in two days now, like the answers might be written across our backyard if he stares at it long enough.
“You’re turning unrelated shit into a conspiracy because you’re angry.”
“Grant, I could be foaming at the mouth and wearing your balls as earrings. It wouldn’t change the date on an invoice.”
His eyes flash. “Don’t talk to me like I’m some criminal.”
“Then stop giving me paperwork that makes you sound like one.”
He comes around the island. “I was trying to protect what we were building. Vale wanted your catalogue. He wanted to separate you from Mercer.”
“Mercer?” I repeat. “You mean you.”
“I mean us.”
“No. You keep using us when you mean whatever benefits you.” His mouth opens.
I keep going, because I’ve spent years letting that mouth get there first, filling every silence with an explanation I was too willing to believe.
“You told Beckett I rejected a deal. You let Daniel turn down another. You stole my song, registered yourself as a writer, and handed it to the woman you were fucking. My money helped build this company. My catalogue helped build your albums. My inheritance helped finance this building. And every time I trusted you with something, you found a way to make it sound like it belonged in your hands.”
“That isn’t fair.” The sentence is so Grant that I almost admire its nerve. “I built this fucking company too. I worked eighteen-hour days. I toured until I couldn’t feel my feet. I took meetings you didn’t want, made calls you didn’t want to make—”
“And apparently rejected deals I did want, so thank God you found the time.”
“Because someone had to have the sense to think about the bigger picture.”
I see the instant he wants the words back.
“The bigger picture,” I echo.
“Laurel.”
“No, go ahead. Finish that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You decided my career was expendable because yours was the bigger picture.”
“I decided we couldn’t both chase separate careers and build Mercer Records from nothing.”
“You decided.”
He groans, his voice tightening with frustration. “Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
I look at the man I loved at twenty-one, married at twenty-four, financed at twenty-eight, forgave at ages I can’t even remember because marriage is made up of so many tiny pardons no one thinks to count them until the unforgivable one arrives.
“You keep talking about choices we made together. I’m starting to wonder how many of them I was even in the room for.”
I leave him standing there, head into the bedroom to pack clothes and essentials, then drive to Mercer Records wearing sunglasses because my eyes are swollen, and I refuse to give anyone a face they can turn into content.
Erin meets me upstairs wearing the particular expression of a woman who has just discovered that rich-people Armageddon falls outside the scope of her employment.
“Is he firing you?” she asks.
I cock an eyebrow. “Why would he fire you?”
“Oh, God.” She covers her face with her palms. “I’m such a mess. I meant, is Grant firing me?”
I chuckle. “For doing your job?”
“He wasn’t thrilled that night.”
“Neither was I, but hey, we all survived.”
Her shoulders loosen a fraction.“I honestly thought I was going to get fired. I mean, calling him that late at night to give him a report on what you were doing? I was trying to figure out how to explain that without making it sound completely insane.”
“You didn't make it sound insane.”
“No?”
“No. You made him sweat buckets, which was exactly what I wanted.”
A tiny smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. “Good.”
I bite back another laugh and proceed to shut my office door—a smaller room than Grant’s because I chose sunlight over square footage, and apparently that remains one of the few decisions he allowed me to make without assistance—and tell her exactly what I need: every payment to Daniel Price, every transaction involving my catalogue, every document carrying my signature, and the system logs showing who uploaded, altered, or accessed those records.
I want copies preserved off-site through counsel, too.
Erin doesn’t ask why. Smart woman. She might be Grant’s assistant, but I hired her.
While she gets to work, I open the email Beckett sent that night and find a secure link waiting beneath:
Everything Vale House has on you is there. Use your own counsel to verify it.
I read it twice, waiting for the catch. I’ve spent enough years around people who call something a favor when they’re really keeping score, and Beckett just handed me the information I need without asking for anything in return.
It’s almost as though Beckett can sense me reading through the mess, because another email from him lands in my inbox before I’ve finished the first.
Beckett: One more thing. Don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for asking questions about your own life.
You deserve to know the truth, Laurel. You deserve to see the paperwork, ask why, and take your time deciding what comes next.
None of that makes you difficult. It makes you careful with what’s yours.
My throat tightens, and I set my phone facedown on the desk, suddenly aware of how badly I needed that sentence and how much I hated that I did. Wrong day for those words to find me.
Erin makes a small sound from across the room. “Laurel.”
My head lifts. “What?”
She turns her screen toward me, and there it is: Daniel Price’s $125,000 payment wasn’t the first.
A few months before Vale House came back with the publishing proposal, Mercer Records paid Daniel Price seventy-five thousand dollars through a touring subsidiary for something called restructuring consultation.
Two offers. Two refusals I never made. Two payments to the same man, both approved by my husband.
I sit very still while the pattern finishes introducing itself, the pieces lining up with a precision I wish they didn’t have.
Two days ago, I thought the damage ended with the affair and one stolen song. Now I’m looking at a trail of payments, decisions, and signatures that reaches much farther back than I ever knew to look, built on the one thing I never thought to withhold from him: my trust.
I reach for my phone, open a fresh email, and address it to Evelyn Shaw, Erin, the chair of Mercer Records’ audit committee, and no one named Grant.
Effective immediately, I am requesting an independent review of every transaction involving my catalogue, compensation, management representation, and capital contributions since the company’s formation. Preserve all correspondence and access logs. No records are to be altered or destroyed.
My finger hovers over send for less than a second, my mind running through all the ways I could deal with Grant, Sloane, the reporters, the lawyers, the people who will inevitably come looking for a story once the truth starts leaking through the cracks. I press send.
Grant has spent fourteen years believing that no matter how badly he hurts me, the worst thing I’ll ever do is walk away. He thought Erin’s call gave him a glimpse of what I was doing. He never stopped to wonder who decided what he got to see.