Chapter 7 - The Cornered Rat
While Caroline rested beneath the watchful gaze of private security, Graham Hayes was sitting in the corner booth of a dim, leather-lined steakhouse three blocks from the Denver municipal building.
Before him sat a double scotch, neat. It was his fourth.
Across the table sat Brooke Sutton. She had discarded her business attire for oversized sunglasses and a trench coat, looking around the nearly empty restaurant every time the front door opened.
“You’re pathetic, Graham,” Brooke hissed, leaning forward. “You promised me this was under control! You told me Caroline was a passive socialite who lived off her daddy’s trust fund and did charity work to keep busy!”
“Shut up, Brooke,” Graham muttered, rubbing his bloodshot eyes.
“Don't you tell me to shut up! My accounts were frozen at two p.m. today! My sister called me in tears—the bank flagged the wire transfers! Do you know what happens if they open a formal inquiry into Sutton Strategic?”
Graham slammed his heavy crystal glass down onto the table. Several patrons at the bar turned to look.
“My board just stripped me of executive authority!” Graham snarled, his voice trembling with alcoholic rage. “Arthur Vance walked into my building with armed security and locked me out of my own office! My keycard doesn't work! My laptop has been seized! And my wife just put a restraining order on me!”
Brooke sneered, her mask of glamorous adoration completely stripped away. “Your wife didn’t just put a restraining order on you, Graham. She outplayed you. She owns you. You’re nothing without her name, are you? That’s what this whole big-shot developer routine was—just a little boy playing with his wife’s money.”
Graham lunged across the table, grabbing Brooke by the wrist. “I gave you seven hundred thousand dollars!”
“Let go of me!” Brooke wrenched her arm back, her face twisting in disgust. “You didn't *give* me anything! I earned every single dollar putting up with your neurotic whiny nonsense for seven months! ‘Oh, Caroline doesn't understand my vision... Caroline is so distant since she got pregnant...’ You make me sick.”
Graham stared at her, the reality of what he had traded his life for crashing down upon him with crushing weight.
This woman didn't love him. She had never loved him. She had looked at a weak, flattered, vain man and bled him dry.
“Get out,” Graham whispered.
Brooke picked up her designer clutch. “Gladly. But you listen to me, Graham. If the police come knocking on my door regarding those invoices, I’m not going down alone. I have every single text message you ever sent me. Every late-night email where you authorized those consulting fees. You told me it was my ‘severance’ for keeping quiet about the baby.”
Graham’s head jerked up, horror paralyzing him. “What did you say?”
Brooke smiled—a cold, poisonous smirk.
“You think I didn't save the receipts? If I go to prison, Graham, you’re going right along with me. So you better figure out how to get your saintly little wife to drop the charges, or you’ll be sharing a cell with real criminals by the time that brat of yours takes her first breath.”
She turned and clattered out of the restaurant on six-inch heels.
Graham sat frozen in the booth.
His phone buzzed on the wood. It was an email alert from his private attorney:
*SUBJECT: NOTICE OF SPECIAL SHAREHOLDER MEETING & WRIT OF ATTACHMENT.*
*Graham—Arthur Vance has acquired Douglas Miller’s voting proxy. The Sterling Trust has invoked the debt acceleration clause on the Highlands project. Unless thirty-two million dollars is deposited into the escrow account by noon tomorrow, the entire company enters involuntary receivership. Caroline has also filed for sole legal and physical custody, citing endangerment and financial abandonment. Call me immediately.*
Graham reached for his glass, but his hand was shaking so violently that the scotch spilled over the rim, soaking into the pristine white paper napkin beneath it.
May you like
He covered his face with his hands and began to weep.
***