Chapter 4 - The Woman I Cheated With
Sienna Vale lived on the thirty-first floor of a glass building overlooking the lake. I had been inside her apartment three times. The first time, I told myself we were drinking after a difficult acquisition. The second, I stopped lying to myself. The third was the night Claire left. I hated every piece of furniture when I returned there the following afternoon. Sienna opened the door wearing sweatpants, no makeup, blonde hair pulled into a loose knot. She looked nothing like the woman who had laughed against my neck six hours earlier. “Daniel.” “We need to talk.” Her face immediately tightened. “Claire knows.” “She left.” Sienna closed her eyes. “I’m sorry.” “Are you?” “Yes.” “Did Michael Reed ask you to get close to me?”
She went white.
There it was.
I stepped inside.
“Answer.”
“Not like that.”
“How?”
“He started inviting me to more executive dinners. Said you needed someone from acquisitions around because Ethan was overextended.”
“When?”
“Four months ago.”
“Before anything happened.”
“Yes.”
“What did Michael want from you?”
“At first? Your schedule. Where you were going. Who you were meeting.”
“Why?”
“He said there were concerns about information leaks.”
“And you believed him?”
“He runs security.”
“So did I.”
She looked ashamed.
“Then he asked whether you talked about Claire’s legal meetings.”
“Did you answer?”
“Yes.”
My jaw tightened.
“What else?”
“He asked whether you seemed worried about the pregnancy.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he ever mention the DeLuca trust?”
Her face said yes before her mouth did.
“Once.”
I felt sick.
“He told me Claire might own claims against Carter properties and could use the baby to gain leverage.”
“The baby?”
“He said there was a family trust.”
“What did he ask you to do?”
Sienna started crying.
“Keep you busy.”
“With sex.”
“He never said that.”
“But you understood.”
“Eventually.”
“And chose it.”
“Yes.”
“So did I.”
The sentence felt necessary.
She looked at me, surprised.
I continued.
“Michael does not get credit for my betrayal.”
“No.”
“Neither do you.”
“No.”
“Good.”
I paced toward the window.
“Why did you tell Ethan?”
“Because Michael started scaring me.”
“How?”
“He knew when I was at home. He knew who I called. He sent me photographs.”
“Of what?”
“Us.”
My stomach tightened.
She opened her phone and showed me.
There were photographs outside restaurants.
In elevators.
One through the window of a private hotel lounge.
Michael had documented the entire affair.
Blackmail material.
“Why?”
“I think he wanted leverage over you.”
“Has he threatened to release them?”
“Not directly.”
“What did he say?”
“That when the time came, everyone would need to choose which side they were on.”
I stared at Lake Michigan.
Michael wasn’t protecting Ethan.
He wasn’t protecting me.
He was building options.
“Did he say where Claire was?”
“No.”
“Did you know she was being followed?”
“No.”
“Did you know he accessed her medical records?”
Sienna looked genuinely horrified.
“What?”
Good.
At least one thing remained separate.
I turned toward her.
“This is over.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
“No severance deal. No secret apartment. No transfer to London. You keep your job while an independent investigation determines whether you violated company rules. You cooperate fully.”
She laughed sadly.
“You sound like a CEO again.”
“It’s the only version of me I know how to operate without destroying people.”
“That’s not true.”
I looked at her.
“Claire loved you.”
Past tense.
It hurt.
Sienna continued, “You talked about her.”
“When?”
“After.”
I looked away.
“You would lie beside me and talk about what crib she wanted. What she ate when she couldn’t sleep. How she hated the name Victoria.”
I almost laughed.
“She did.”
“You loved her.”
“That makes it worse.”
“Yes.”
She wiped her eyes.
“Why did you do this?”
The question had haunted me since sunrise.
I could have blamed stress.
Fear.
Power.
Michael.
Marriage becoming routine.
None were enough.
“Because for a few hours I could become a man who didn’t have to be needed.”
Sienna’s expression softened.
I hated that.
“Claire needed you too much?”
“No. Everybody did. Employees. Ethan. Investors. Dad’s legacy. Then Claire got pregnant after we tried for two years, and I was terrified I would fail at the one thing money couldn’t fix.”
“So you ran.”
“Yes.”
“Into me.”
“Yes.”
It was pathetic when said plainly.
My phone buzzed.
Marcus.
We found the SUV. Registered to a subcontractor used by Carter Executive Security. Driver won’t talk.
Then another message.
Michael hasn’t returned home.
I called Ethan.
“Where is Reed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Freeze his company access.”
“Already did.”
“Corporate cards.”
“Done.”
“Property systems.”
“Done.”
I paused.
“Do not touch anything related to Claire.”
“Understood.”
For once, my brother didn’t argue.
Then Sienna said quietly, “Daniel.”
I turned.
“There’s something I never told Ethan.”
“What?”
“Michael asked me whether Claire had signed a maternity power of attorney.”
My skin prickled.
“What?”
“He wanted to know who could make decisions if she became incapacitated during delivery.”
The apartment suddenly felt cold.
“When?”
“Last week.”
“What did you say?”
“That I didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because by then I was afraid you’d ask why I was talking to him at all.”
My hands shook.
If Claire became medically incapacitated, I was her husband. I would ordinarily be the person making decisions.
Unless someone wanted to manipulate what happened around our daughter’s birth.
The first-child trust became active at birth.
I called Rebecca again.
She declined.
I texted instead.
Please tell Claire to update every medical authorization. Do not list me unless she chooses. Michael asked questions about incapacity during delivery. I think she was right to leave.
Typing that last sentence almost broke me.
Three minutes passed.
Then Rebecca replied.
Already done.
Another message appeared.
She says thank you for finally listening.
I sat down.
Sienna watched me.
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“You could find her.”
“Yes.”
With enough people and money, I probably could.
Sienna seemed to realize the same thing.
“Will you?”
I looked at Claire’s sister’s message.
She says thank you for finally listening.
“No.”
Sienna looked surprised.
“Why?”
“Because she asked me not to.”
That answer felt like the first decent decision I had made in months.
Then my phone rang from an unknown number.
I answered.
Michael Reed.
“Stop looking for me.”
I stood.
“Where are you?”
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
“What’s the right one?”
“Who signed the original trust amendment?”
“My father.”
Michael laughed.
“No.”
My stomach dropped.
“Then who?”
“Claire’s mother.”
Silence.
“And if Claire finds out why Angela DeLuca signed it…”
He paused.
“She won’t only leave you.”
“What does that mean?”
“She’ll burn Carter Holdings to the ground.”
The call disconnected.
May you like
And for the first time, I wondered whether Claire had disappeared not simply to protect our daughter from my empire.
Maybe she was preparing to destroy it.
