Chapter 6 - THE CALL THAT NEVER REACHED HIM
Claire called Grant.
He answered on the first ring.
“What happened?”
Not hello.
Not why are you calling.
He heard something in her breathing.
Claire looked at the ultrasound photograph.
“Someone was inside the apartment.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Grant arrived at Bellweather with a security specialist.
He did not touch Claire.
Did not interrogate her.
Did not tell her everything would be fine.
He simply asked, “Can I see it?”
She handed him the note.
ASK WHO CANCELED DALLAS.
Grant read it twice.
“What does that mean?”
“I thought you'd know.”
He stared at the date on the ultrasound.
Then his expression changed.
“Dallas.”
“The conference?”
Grant nodded slowly.
“I wasn't originally supposed to stay overnight.”
Claire froze.
“What?”
“I booked the last flight home.”
She stared.
Grant's memory sharpened.
“Melissa told me the flight was canceled because of storms. She rebooked me for the next afternoon.”
Claire swallowed.
“Was there a storm?”
“I never checked.”
Grant immediately called his former travel manager.
The answer came ten minutes later.
The flight had departed on time.
Claire sat down.
Grant looked sick.
“Why would Melissa keep you there?”
Neither had to answer.
Because that was the night Claire miscarried.
But how could Melissa have known?
Claire's mind raced backward.
The doctor's appointment.
The pregnancy.
Who knew?
Rachel.
Her physician.
Claire herself.
And—
She looked up.
“Daniel.”
Grant went still.
“I told Rachel I was pregnant three days before Dallas.”
Silence.
“If she told Daniel…”
Grant finished the thought.
“He knew.”
Claire's eyes filled.
“No.”
The cruelty was almost impossible to comprehend.
Daniel hadn't caused the miscarriage.
But if he had deliberately kept Grant away—
Grant called Rachel.
Her answer shattered the last doubt.
“Yes,” Rachel whispered. “I told him. I was excited. Claire asked me not to say anything until she told you, but Daniel was my husband. I thought it was safe.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Grant turned away, jaw clenched.
Suddenly Daniel's betrayal wasn't about a company.
It was personal.
He had spent years cultivating Grant's worst instincts.
Every unnecessary late meeting.
Every last-minute trip.
Every joke about marriage surviving neglect.
Daniel hadn't created Grant's choices.
Grant knew better than to excuse himself that way.
But Daniel had learned how easily Grant could be pulled away.
And used it.
A deeper forensic review uncovered the pattern.
Melissa had rerouted calls.
Canceled personal calendar reminders.
Marked Claire's messages as nonurgent.
Daniel scheduled meetings over birthdays and vacations.
Not every time.
Not enough to be obvious.
Just enough.
Claire read the report in silence.
Grant sat across from her.
“I let them.”
She looked up.
“Grant—”
“No. I need to say that correctly.”
His voice was steady.
“They manipulated my schedule. They didn't manipulate my priorities.”
Claire's throat tightened.
“I chose to answer.”
He looked at the ultrasound.
“I chose not to call back.”
For the first time, Claire did not feel the need to protect him from the truth.
“Yes.”
Grant nodded.
No defense.
That mattered.
The investigation moved quickly.
Melissa was found in Boston trying to leave the country.
She cooperated.
Daniel had paid her for eighteen months.
But the biggest revelation came two days later.
Daniel had not planned merely to take Mercer Development.
He intended to sell its most valuable properties to Hawthorne Capital.
And Hawthorne had one requirement.
Grant had to be personally discredited.
Claire's supposed sabotage would provide motive: a collapsing marriage, an unstable spouse, a CEO distracted by scandal.
Everything had been designed around the Mercer marriage falling apart.
Daniel simply hadn't expected Grant to refuse to blame Claire.
That mistake broke the scheme.
By Friday, prosecutors had enough to charge him.
Daniel surrendered through an attorney.
Rachel filed for divorce the same afternoon.
Claire visited her.
They sat on the kitchen floor drinking tea because neither woman wanted to sit at the dining table where they had shared hundreds of dinners with their husbands.
Rachel cried.
“I told him things about you.”
“You trusted your husband.”
“So did you.”
Claire looked down.
“Yes.”
Rachel wiped her eyes.
“Do you still love Grant?”
Claire gave a tired laugh.
“Unfortunately.”
“Are you going back?”
“No.”
Rachel looked surprised.
Claire understood why.
People imagined love and reconciliation were the same decision.
They weren't.
“I love him,” Claire said. “But I don't know if I can live with him.”
That night, Grant slept in their old apartment.
He had repaired the radiator years ago.
The bathroom door still stuck.
He deliberately left it that way.
At 1:00 a.m., someone knocked.
Grant opened the door.
Claire stood outside.
His heart nearly stopped.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
She did.
Her gaze traveled across the tiny apartment.
Grant had barely furnished it.
A couch.
A table.
Two lamps.
On the wall hung one painting.
Claire recognized it immediately.
She had painted it at twenty-four.
A terrible abstract skyline Grant had bought for fifty dollars before their first date because he wanted an excuse to talk to her.
“You kept that?”
“I keep everything.”
Claire looked at him.
“Except time.”
Grant's expression fell.
She regretted it instantly.
But he nodded.
“Except time.”
Claire sat.
“I didn't come to hurt you.”
“I know.”
“I came because I realized something.”
He waited.
“I've spent almost a year blaming myself.”
Grant's eyes softened.
“For the miscarriage?”
She nodded.
“And then I blamed you.”
“You had reason.”
“Yes. But neither one brought our baby back.”
Her voice cracked.
Grant's eyes filled.
Claire had never seen him cry.
Not at his father's funeral.
Not when his company nearly collapsed in its first year.
Now tears slid silently down his face.
“I didn't even know,” he whispered.
Claire began crying too.
“I wanted you there.”
“I know.”
“I wanted you so badly.”
Grant sank to his knees in front of her but didn't touch her.
“I would give everything to have answered that phone.”
Claire looked at him.
“I know.”
And for the first time, she meant it.
She reached for his hand.
Grant closed his fingers around hers.
They stayed that way for a long time.
Not healed.
Not reunited.
But finally grieving the same child.
Then Claire noticed something beneath the table.
An envelope.
Grant followed her gaze.
His face changed.
“What?”
“I've never seen that.”
Claire picked it up.
No stamp.
No name.
Inside was a single photograph.
Daniel.
Melissa.
And Ethan Cole.
Together.
Claire stared at it.
May you like
Grant whispered:
“What the hell?”
