The Rival's Wife (The Executive Wife #7)
CHAPTER ONE
THE TUESDAY TABLE
Marcus Webb arrived at our house at exactly nine o’clock carrying the same expression he wore when he raised a bid by twenty million dollars.
Helena arrived beside him carrying nothing.
That worried me more.
Nathan had sent the staff home at seven. The chef left dinner prepared. Security remained outside the property line. Every interior camera had been disabled except the entrance hall, and that recording would erase automatically before midnight.
No staff.
No cameras.
Four people.
One network.
The message from Helena had not exaggerated.
I opened the door myself.
Marcus wore charcoal. No tie. Black overcoat cut close enough to remind anyone looking that he was six foot four and broad enough to make expensive tailoring negotiate with his shoulders.
He had fucked me under a silver mask three nights earlier, said my name before dawn, and then raised the North Atlantic bid from his helicopter.
The fact that he could do both without changing his breathing irritated me.
Helena wore cream trousers, a black silk blouse, and the gold mask hanging from one finger like a threat she had decided not to hide.
Her cut lip had almost healed.
I had made it bleed in a Scottish library.
She looked at my mouth.
I looked at hers.
“Are we doing business first?” she asked.
“Shoes first. Business people ruin floors when they are angry.”
Marcus smiled.
“You expect anger?”
Nathan appeared behind me.
“You brought photographs to my home.”
The two men measured each other without moving.
Daylight at Blackthorn had restored names. My entrance hall restored money, territory, and all the ordinary weapons adults used when masks were gone.
Marcus removed his coat.
“The photographs are legal.”
“So is breaking your company into parts,” Nathan said.
Helena handed me her coat before either man could decide which sentence had been a threat.
“This is why wives should negotiate first.”
“Do you?” I asked.
“When the husbands become predictable.”
I led them through the drawing room toward the private dining room.
London rain moved against the tall windows.
The table seated fourteen, but I had left only four chairs.
White linen. Black plates. Waterford crystal.
The same level of formality we used for heads of state, reduced to a room small enough that every breath would matter.
The black notebook waited beside my place.
Helena saw it immediately.
Marcus did too.
“You document your private failures,” he said.
“Only the useful ones.”
“How many pages did Scotland earn?”
Nathan pulled out my chair.
“Enough that you should be careful what you add.”
Marcus sat opposite me. Helena took the chair opposite Nathan.
The arrangement created two marriages and two rivalries before the first glass was poured.
I opened the bottle myself.
No staff meant no neutral hands.
“The North Atlantic network,” Marcus said. “A joint acquisition. Fifty-one percent Sterling. Forty-nine Webb.”
“No.”
“You have not seen the governance terms.”
“I have seen your governance. You mistake leverage for leadership.”
Marcus leaned back.
“And you mistake owning the chair for owning the room.”
My cunt tightened beneath my black dress.
Nathan noticed.
Helena noticed him noticing.
The first course waited under silver covers in a warming cabinet. I did not move to retrieve it.
“The photographs,” Nathan said.
Helena placed the gold mask beside her plate.
“Three images. Public locations. No sex. No nudity. Nothing illegal.”
“Meaning created by context,” I said.
“Exactly.”
Marcus put a slim envelope on the table.
I did not touch it.
“Withdraw from the bid,” he said, “and the context remains private.”
Nathan’s hand closed over the back of my chair.
I felt the strength in his fingers through the wood.
“You came into my house to blackmail my wife,” he said.
Marcus looked at him.
“I came to offer a partnership.”
“With a knife on the table.”
“Every partnership begins with knowing where the knives are.”
Helena picked up the envelope before the men could continue.
Then she tore it in half.
Marcus turned his head slowly.
The sound of paper ripping was small.
It changed the room.
Helena tore the photographs again. Four pieces. Eight. She placed them in the empty wine bucket and poured water over them.
Ink began to bleed.
“Wrong weapon,” she said.
Marcus’s face did not change.
That was more dangerous than anger.
“We discussed this.”
“You discussed it. I listened.”
“Helena.”
She looked at him.
“If you beat Victoria, beat her in the bid. If you want access to the Circle, admit curiosity. If you want her, say that too. Do not call fear strategy because your suit is expensive.”
Silence held the four of us.
Nathan’s hand left my chair and settled on my shoulder.
Marcus looked at his wife as if seeing the gold mask again.
Not as costume.
As evidence that she could enter rooms he did not control.
“You warned her at Blackthorn,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Before I spoke to Nathan.”
“Yes.”
“You gave her the mask.”
“Yes.”
Each answer made his jaw tighter.
My jealousy recognized his.
That made me like him more.
I opened the black notebook.
The first blank page waited beneath rules written on yachts, in glass houses, and after anonymous castles.
“Marcus,” I said. “You still want the network.”
“Yes.”
“Helena, you still want your husband.”
She looked at him.
“Always.”
The word belonged to us.
Hearing it from her felt like finding another couple using our private door.
Nathan’s fingers tightened on my shoulder.
“And you want something from us,” I said.
Helena’s eyes moved to my mouth.
“Several things.”
The rain thickened against the glass.
Marcus looked at Nathan.
“Competition creates discipline.”
Nathan answered before I could.
“So does losing.”
I wrote one line in the notebook.
RIVALRY IS NOT PERMISSION TO LIE.
Then I closed it.
“Dinner first,” I said. “Threats after.”
Helena smiled.
“And sex?”
Nathan pulled out the second bottle.
“That depends on whether your husband learns how to ask.”
Marcus looked at me.
The calm finally cracked.
Not much.
Enough.
Tuesday had begun.