Chapter 24 #2
Harlan looks tired. “This is a board meeting, Charles. You can save courtroom theater for a courtroom.”
I lean forward. “I was protecting Mercer Records.” The room stays quiet, and I take that as my cue to keep digging.
“At the time, Laurel was central to our publishing operation. We were building from nothing. Beckett Vale was using aggressive offers to pull away assets and talent we had developed internally.”
Laurel turns her head. “Assets and talent.”
“You know that isn’t what I meant. I was talking about the catalogue.”
“Which you call an asset whenever saying my name becomes inconvenient.”
“Laurel, for fuck’s sake.”
Evelyn touches her arm, but Laurel doesn’t need restraining. She looks almost bored.
“Please continue. I’m genuinely curious how far you can get before one of your lawyers tackles you.”
A few people look down, trying not to smile. Humiliation burns up my neck.
Harlan calls a recess before the meeting becomes entirely marital, but no one gets up because outside counsel has one more item.
Daniel’s statement.
They read it aloud.
Mr. Mercer repeatedly described Ms. Bellamy-Mercer’s independent career opportunities as threats to Mercer Records and to his marriage.
He directed me to ensure that material offers did not reach her directly.
I understood continued consulting payments to be contingent on complying with those instructions.
My attorney starts again, but his voice is a distant hum beneath the noise in my head. I watch Laurel close her folder and meet my eyes without a hint of rage. She’s too damn calm.
When the vote finally comes, Laurel asks to speak first, and Harlan gives her the floor.
“Last week, I opposed suspending Grant because much of what we had was preliminary,” she says.
“I wanted the questions answered with him present. They have been.” She looks around the table, not at me.
“This company employs over sixty-three people. Writers have trusted us with work they created before some of them were old enough to rent a car. Artists have signed agreements because we told them their rights would be handled transparently. Whatever happens between Grant and me personally cannot be allowed to determine the standard Mercer Records applies professionally.”
Miriam’s eyes are wet.
“The evidence shows company funds were used to pay my representative while he withheld offers from me at Grant’s direction.
The evidence shows additional works were attached to an administration agreement after I signed it, with Grant’s approval.
The company later represented revenue from those works to a lender and compensated Grant through a bonus tied, in part, to publishing performance.
Whether every action proves unlawful is for counsel to determine.
It is already sufficient for me to conclude that Grant cannot oversee the investigation into his own conduct. ”
“Your recommendation?” Harlan asks.
Laurel finally gives me her full attention, and when our eyes clash, I see eleven years of marriage.
Fourteen years together. I know every version of those eyes—the girl who loved me in a shitty East Nashville apartment, the woman who married me before anyone cared about my name, the artist I promised I’d never let the industry erase.
I don’t recognize the woman who answers.
“Remove him as chief executive until the investigation is completed. Suspend his authority over publishing permanently, subject to a board vote after the final findings. Freeze any unpaid executive bonuses and begin a clawback review of the six hundred and twelve thousand dollars. Appoint independent management so no one can claim I replaced my husband because I wanted his chair.”
Russell whistles under his breath.
I glare at her. “You planned this.”
Harlan says my name in warning, but Laurel answers anyway. “Yes.”
Son of a bitch.
The honesty hits harder than denial.
“You fucking planned all of it. You let me think I was getting away with it because—”
“I didn’t fabricate Daniel’s invoices.” Her voice never rises.
“I didn’t alter the schedule. I didn’t pledge the revenue.
I didn’t approve your bonus. I didn’t fuck Sloane.
I didn’t fuck Camille. Grant, at some point, you’re going to have to accept that the most effective person in my revenge has been you. ”
Silence.
Even my lawyer shuts up.
Harlan calls the vote.
Eight in favor. Three against. One abstention.
The numbers sit on the screen for a few seconds before the meaning catches up with me.
My title disappears in under ninety seconds.
∞∞∞
The strange thing about losing a position is that the room doesn’t change.
My Grammys and awards still line the shelves. The framed photograph of Laurel at the Ryman still sits beside the lamp, her younger face caught mid-song, mouth open, eyes closed, one hand wrapped around the microphone like the future had been waiting for her to sing loud enough to claim it.
Erin stands in the doorway while IT shuts down my executive credentials, the expression I expected on her face nowhere near the shit I’m actually seeing there.
“Harlan asked me to collect your corporate phone.”
I laugh. The wall is looking fucking tempting to drive my fist into, but we’re pretending I’ve evolved.
“You’re taking my phone.”
“The company phone.”
“I bought the fucking company.”
Erin tilts her head, like she’s reminding me that argument stopped working the second the board took my title.
“You own forty-two percent.”
Laurel’s words through somebody else’s goddamn mouth.
“Give me ten minutes.” I grit the words out.
“I’m supposed to stay.”
“Of course you are.”
She steps inside and closes the door, making her position perfectly clear; she isn’t moving an inch.
My personal phone rings, my mother’s name lighting up the screen, and I reject it.
The last thing I need right now is to hear shit like, I warned you, blah fucking blah.
Another alert appears before I can lock the screen.
Heartland Songs terminates exclusivity with Mercer Records after financing delay.
Seven months of negotiation gone to the fucking bush, and the seller is reopening talks with two competing bidders. One of them is Vale House.
I laugh again, harder.
“Of course the bastard gets everything. Beckett fucking Vale gets the deal, gets Laurel’s music, gets to fuck my wife—”
“She isn’t your—”
The correction tastes like blood.
I turn toward her, my eyes narrowing. “Finish that sentence.”
She swallows. “I was going to say this isn’t about Mr. Vale.”
“Everyone keeps saying that while the bastard stands five feet behind her every time she takes something from me.”
Through the glass wall, I see Laurel leave Harlan’s office with Evelyn. Beckett is waiting near reception. He isn’t smiling. Laurel says something, and he takes the heavy document case from her hand.
That simple act makes me see red all over again. Goddammit.
I start toward them, but Erin intercepts me, raising a hand to block the door.
“I’ll need the phone before you go anywhere.”
I stare at my assistant—the woman Laurel hired, the woman I ordered to monitor her access, the woman who has watched the last two weeks from a front-row seat nobody should envy.
And suddenly, the smug fucking calm in her face makes everything click.
“You’ve been working with her.”
Erin doesn’t answer, but that’s all the confirmation I need.
I think back to that late-night call on our anniversary, when she told me what Laurel had accessed, what she’d searched, what she’d requested.
I thought she was keeping me informed. All along, she was reporting to Laurel.
My stomach drops.
I look through the glass again, watching my wife disappear.
My entire life has been coming apart at the seams, and she’s been the one pulling the threads.
∞∞∞
“Laurel!”
Heat rolls off the pavement hard enough to distort the cars at the edge of the lot.
Beckett stands beside a black SUV, loading her document case into the back.
He sees me first, and his body changes by almost nothing, but I notice because I’ve spent seven years watching him whenever he gets within fifty feet of my wife.
She pivots toward me as I approach, sunglasses hiding her eyes so I can’t read her expression.
“You got what you wanted.”
Beckett starts to move away, and I point at him. “Stay right fucking there.”
The warning etched into his stoic features almost makes me shrink into the hot ground, but I don’t backpedal. He might be twice my size with all those fucking muscles, but I’m not scared of him.
Laurel takes off her glasses. “Is there a need to bark like a fucking dog just because you’re upset?”
My temper tears loose.
“You think this guy is some fucking saint because he waited until our marriage was bleeding before crawling back into your life?”
Beckett’s jaw shifts.
Finally. A goddamn reaction.
I’ve spent years watching that bastard wear the same stoic expression whenever he gets under my skin, and seeing even that tiny crack in it sends a thrill through me.
“Grant,” he says. “You should leave.”
“Why? You fucked her a few times, followed her everywhere like a stray, and suddenly you’re her fucking husband?”