l playing out his charade at the hotel.
I unlocked the front door, the silence pressing against my eardrums, and walked straight into his home office. Let me be perfectly clear: I was never the kind of woman who snooped. I had never scoured a text log or checked a browser history. What I engaged in over the next hour was not fueled by petty jealousy or manic paranoia. It was the icy, methodical excavation of a woman who already understood the devastating truth, and was simply hunting for the shrapnel she needed to survive the blast.
Thatcher’s desk was immaculate. He was a man defined by his precision. Everything was sequestered into neatly labeled, color-coded folders. His handwriting was as sharp and uncompromising as a contract clause. Ironically, it was one of the traits I had once found so grounding about him.
I bypassed the decoy drawers and opened the heavy bottom filing cabinet. Nestled in the back was a thick folder labeled simply: Bloom Restructuring .
I dragged it onto the leather blotter, switched on the brass desk lamp, and opened it.
The first document felt heavy, like lead. It was a Partnership Dissolution Agreement , backdated six weeks prior. The clauses were dense, but the conclusion was violently simple: it listed Claudine as the sole, undisputed remaining owner of Bloom & Co. upon execution. My breath hitched. At the bottom of the final page, stark against the white paper, was my signature. Or, rather, a masterful counterfeit of it. The ink was slightly too even, lacking my usual rushed flourish—the hallmark of a signature someone had meticulously practiced on scratch paper before committing to the forgery.
A tremor started in my hands as I flipped to the second document. It was a formal Letter of Intent from Pinnacle Events Group , a predatory corporate floral conglomerate operating out of Atlanta. They were offering a staggering $1.8 million for the full, hostile acquisition of my company. The letter was addressed exclusively to Claudine. The closing date was a mere forty-five days away.
