Chapter Eight
Kiera
As I watch Logan leave, I move before I can think.
“Logan—”
Garth’s hand closes gently but firmly around my wrist, stopping me before I can take more than two steps toward the door.
The softness of the gesture does nothing to lessen the weight of it.
Because I know what he’s asking before he even says it.
I know he wants me to stay, to let Logan go, to give him space.
“He needs time,” Garth says quietly, his voice hoarse but steady.
My chest tightens. “He thinks I betrayed him.”
“I know,” he replies, his grip loosening but not releasing. “And chasing him right now won’t change that.”
I shake my head, my eyes burning. “But what if he doesn’t come back from this?”
Garth studies me for a moment, something knowing in his expression. Something that makes my breath hitch slightly even before he speaks again.
“He will,” he says simply. “Because I’ve been watching the two of you, Kiera, even when you thought you were being careful. Whatever this is between you…is not something that disappears because of one mistake.”
Heat creeps up my neck despite everything. “You knew?”
A faint smile touches his lips. “I’m still your father.”
The word settles deep, grounding me just enough to steady my breathing. Enough to pull me out of the panic threatening to take over.
“There’s something else,” I say. “He found an email. From eighteen months ago.”
Garth’s eyes sharpen.
“The advisory fees I flagged. The query I raised and got told to drop.” My voice doesn’t hold as well as I’d like. “Philip forwarded it to my mother. Logan thinks that means I raised it as cover.”
Garth is quiet for a moment. “And what does it actually mean?”
“It means Philip was frightened of me,” I say. “For about nine days. And then he went to the person who could tell him whether I mattered, and she told him I didn’t.”
Something moves across my stepfather’s face—the old anger, worn smooth by many years but still there.
“Then that’s what we prove,” he says.
I swallow hard, nodding once as I force myself to step back fully.
“Then what do we do?” I ask.
His expression shifts, the softness fading into something more focused, more determined. “We fix what needs to be fixed,” he says. “The company comes first. Philip needs to be removed, and the board needs to see the evidence.”
“I can’t call a board meeting.”
“No,” he agrees. “But I can. Get the corporate secretary on the phone.”
She has held the role at Edwards Capital Management for nineteen years and has never once, in my experience, been surprised by anything.
When Garth gives her the instruction—special meeting, forty-eight hours, all directors, and yes, all of them—she asks two clarifying questions and says she’ll have the notice out within the hour.
“You’ll present,” Garth says to me when the call ends.
“It should be you.”
“It should be somebody the board has watched work these past few years,” he says. “That’s not me anymore. That’s you.”
“And Logan…” Garth says. “He’ll come. He may be angry, but he won’t walk away from this.”
I hope he’s right. Because I don’t think I can handle it if he isn’t.
???
The conference room feels colder than usual. Or maybe it’s just me.
I stand at the head of the table, my hands resting lightly on the polished surface as I wait for everyone to settle. My gaze flicks briefly to the door every few seconds despite myself, my pulse picking up each time it opens, each time it isn’t him.
Then he walks in.
Logan doesn’t look at me as he takes his seat without a word. The distance between us is immediate and suffocating. It takes everything in me not to react, not to let it show how much his silence affects me.
I need to focus. This is bigger than us.
The meeting begins. I speak clearly, presenting the findings Logan uncovered from the material I gave him, laying out the evidence.
As the room shifts, as murmurs ripple through the board, I push forward.
“I want to be clear about how this started,” I say.
“Eighteen months ago, I questioned those fees myself. I was told they were legacy arrangements predating my tenure, and I accepted that answer. I shouldn’t have.”
I don’t look at Logan. It costs me. “Two weeks ago, I gave the same query to Mr. Blake and asked him to take it further than I had. He did.”
Somebody at the far end of the table writes something down.
“And that’s not all,” I say, my voice firm as I glance briefly toward Logan before continuing. “There is also evidence linking him to a secondary accomplice.”
I turn the screen. Ivy’s name appears.
The room stills. Philip stiffens instantly, his composure cracking just enough to reveal the truth beneath it, while Ivy remains calm. Too calm.
“This is ridiculous,” she says dismissively. “You expect us to believe this?”
“The evidence speaks for itself,” I reply.
Philip stands abruptly. “This is a setup,” he snaps. “You’re trying to pin this on me without—”
“Sit down,” one of the board members cuts in sharply.
Silence follows.
“The board’s authority here is limited,” the corporate secretary says from her seat at Garth’s right, without looking up from her minutes. “We can direct the officers, and we can refer this to counsel and to law enforcement. I’d suggest we do both.”
“Then that’s the motion,” another director says. “And Mathews goes today.”
Philip’s face twists with anger, but security is already moving, stepping forward to escort him out. Then, he’s gone.
But Ivy remains. Unbothered.
“You can’t do anything to me,” she says smoothly, folding her arms. “As Garth’s wife, I co-own his shares. I have every right to be here.”
A flicker of unease moves through the room.
Then, the door opens again. Every head turns.
Garth steps in slowly, supported by his cane. His lawyer is by his side, his appearance frailer than ever but his presence stronger than it has been in years. The room shifts instantly, the tension sharpening as he makes his way forward.
“I believe that’s where you’re wrong,” he says calmly.
Ivy blanches.
Garth stops at the head of the table, his gaze sweeping the room before settling briefly on Logan. Something soft passes between them for just a second before he turns back to Ivy.
“I’ve known about your affairs for years,” he says.
The words land like a bomb. Ivy’s composure cracks.
“At first, I stayed quiet because I was afraid you’d take Kiera away from me,” he continues, his voice steady despite the strain. “Then I simply stopped caring, as long as you stayed out of my life.”
I was never alone.
“But I kept track,” he adds, nodding slightly toward his lawyer. “Private investigators. Records. Documentation.”
Ivy’s face pales.
Garth turns briefly to Logan. “I didn’t know about the theft,” he says. “But you did. And you found it. Thank you.”
Something shifts in Logan’s expression, subtle but real.
Then Garth looks back at Ivy. “I demand a divorce.”
The room erupts.
“You can’t do that!” Ivy snaps, her voice rising sharply. “If you divorce me, I’ll take half of everything!”
His lawyer steps forward calmly. “Two corrections, Mrs. Edwards. The first is that you don’t own any part of your husband’s shares and never have. Edwards Capital Management was founded eleven years before your marriage. It’s separate property. Whatever you’ve been told, or told yourself,
has no basis.”
“That’s not—”
“The second,” he continues, “is this.” He hands her a document. “A prenuptial agreement, signed by you, witnessed, and never contested. It provides that in the event of infidelity, you forfeit any claim to marital assets. You’ll find your signature on page nine.”
Ivy snatches the paper, scanning it, her expression twisting as the reality sinks in.
“Then what am I doing on this board?”
“Sitting in a seat my client appointed you to eleven years ago and has never gotten around to removing,” the lawyer says. “That’s the extent of it. It carries no ownership. It’s a courtesy, and it ends this afternoon.”
“This is a trick,” she spits.
“It’s a consequence,” Garth replies.
She loses it. Completely.
Her hand lashes out, aimed straight for Garth, but I move before I can think. I step between them, catching her wrist mid-motion, the force of it jarring but not enough to stop me.
“Don’t,” I say sharply.
Her eyes snap to mine. And then, she laughs. Bitter. Cruel.
“You think you matter?” she sneers. “You’re nothing. You always were. I stayed because of the money, not because of you.”
The words hit. But they don’t break me. Not anymore.
“I know,” I say.
And I do. That’s the strange part. I’ve known since I was young, so hearing her say it out loud in a room full of people costs me nothing at all, because it isn’t news.
What lands is something else entirely.
She has just told a board of directors, at volume, that her daughter was never worth anything to her.
Which means nobody in this room believes for one second that she’d have made me a partner in anything.
Security moves in quickly, pulling her back, dragging her away as she continues shouting.
The chaos soon settles into silence, and everything feels different. Lighter. Cleaner.
One by one, the board members begin to leave, murmuring quietly. The tension dissolves into something more manageable, more controlled, until it’s just us.
Garth. Logan. Me. Garth looks between us, his gaze knowing and gentle.
“Talk,” he says simply.
And then he leaves.
???
The door closes behind Garth, leaving only silence.
I don’t move at first. Neither does Logan.
“I’m sorry.”
The words leave him first.
I look up. He’s already watching me, his expression no longer guarded, no longer cold, just…open in a way I haven’t seen since before everything fell apart.
“I should have trusted you,” he continues, his voice quieter now. “I let the past get in the way of what was right in front of me.”
“You had an email,” I say.
“I had an email that meant two things, and I knew it meant two things while I was reading it.” His jaw works. “I sat at that desk for twenty minutes knowing it could go either way, and then I got up and drove to your office and picked the one that hurt less.”
“That hurt less?”