Chapter 4 - PROJECT CROWN
Adrian entered the office and saw the open safe.
For a second, neither of us moved.
His gaze dropped to the folder in my hands.
Everything changed.
“Where did you get that?”
I almost admired the question.
He was standing inside our home, looking at documents hidden inside his safe, and still behaved as if I were the intruder.
“I opened the safe.”
“You had no right.”
“I’m your wife.”
“Not to confidential business documents.”
“Documents about removing me from my job?”
His face tightened.
“Give me the folder.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
I picked up the second phone.
“Phase two?”
The color left his face.
“I can explain.”
“That sentence has had a terrible day.”
He stepped toward me.
I stepped backward.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
But the fact that he immediately denied it frightened me more than I wanted to admit.
He stopped.
For seven years, I had known every version of Adrian Whitmore.
Charming Adrian.
Ambitious Adrian.
Tender Adrian.
Petty Adrian.
Jealous Adrian.
I had never seen this one.
Cornered Adrian.
“Project Crown was a contingency plan,” he said.
“For what?”
“If your appointment failed.”
“Before it began?”
“The board was divided.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“I know my name is circled with the word remove beside it.”
“That wasn’t literal.”
“What was it?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“I was angry.”
“You created shell companies when you were angry?”
His eyes flicked toward me.
There.
A reaction.
“You know about Wrenfield.”
“Yes.”
“That property has nothing to do with you.”
“It was renovated with company money.”
“That will be repaid.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“By whom?”
Silence.
I held up the phone.
“Unlock this.”
“No.”
“Unlock it.”
“It’s private.”
“So is marriage.”
His expression hardened.
“You’ve already decided what I am.”
“No, Adrian. I’m trying to discover what you are.”
That hit him.
For a moment I saw genuine pain.
Then anger swallowed it.
“You walked away from us two years ago.”
“My mother was dying.”
“And I supported you.”
“You were sleeping with your secretary.”
“Not then.”
“I have photographs.”
That stopped him.
“From Florida.”
His jaw tightened.
“Who sent them?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“That’s your concern?”
“Who sent them, Claire?”
He suddenly looked frightened again.
Not of me.
Of whoever had the photographs.
I noticed.
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Who else knows about Vanessa?”
He looked toward the window.
“Adrian.”
“Edward.”
Charles’s brother.
My stomach dropped.
“What does Edward know?”
“Everything.”
“How?”
Adrian sat down.
For the first time that day, he looked exhausted.
“Because Vanessa wasn’t originally my secretary.”
“What?”
“She worked for Edward.”
I stared at him.
“Doing what?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You had an affair with a woman working for your estranged uncle and never thought that mattered?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“When did you learn?”
“After Florida.”
Two years ago.
“You continued seeing her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“Because by then it was complicated.”
“Complicated means what?”
“She knew things.”
“About you?”
“About everyone.”
The apartment suddenly felt colder.
I closed the office door behind me.
“What things?”
“Board relationships. Debts. Private negotiations. My father’s health. Executive vulnerabilities.”
“Corporate intelligence.”
“Yes.”
“You mean blackmail.”
“Sometimes.”
My grip tightened on the folder.
“Did Edward put her near you deliberately?”
“I think so.”
“And you rewarded her by buying her a townhouse?”
“I didn’t buy that townhouse.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you knew she lived there.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know Whitmore money funded the renovation?”
“No.”
I studied him.
For once, I believed him.
Not because he deserved trust.
Because he looked genuinely stunned.
“So Project Crown?”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Vanessa brought me the idea.”
Of course she did.
“She told me your appointment would destroy my future. Said the board would push me out within a year.”
“And you believed her.”
“I knew it was possible.”
“What was phase two?”
He looked at the second phone.
“I never agreed to phase two.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“She wanted to manufacture a conflict-of-interest scandal around you.”
My stomach turned.
“How?”
“Your consulting work during your mother’s treatment.”
“That was disclosed.”
“Not all the payments.”
“All my payments were disclosed.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
“She said documents could be created.”
“Forged.”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“And you stayed with her after she proposed framing your wife for fraud?”
“I told her no.”
“You also kept planning how to replace me.”
“I wanted leverage.”
“You wanted my chair.”
His voice rose.
“I spent fifteen years preparing to run this company!”
“And the board chose someone else.”
“My wife.”
There it was.
Not betrayal.
Humiliation.
He couldn’t tolerate that I had achieved the position he believed belonged to him.
“Did you ever love me?” I asked.
His expression broke.
“Of course I did.”
“Did?”
“Do.”
I shook my head.
“You love winning.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Neither is sleeping with your secretary while planning to exploit a fabricated scandal against me.”
“I didn’t fabricate anything.”
“You prepared to benefit from it.”
He stood.
“Claire, Vanessa is dangerous.”
“So why are you protecting her?”
“I’m not.”
“Then unlock the phone.”
He looked at it.
Then at me.
Finally, he took it.
His thumb touched the screen.
Unlocked.
There were hundreds of messages.
Some intimate.
Some mundane.
Some horrifying.
Vanessa sent photographs of executives entering hotels.
Screenshots of confidential board emails.
Bank records.
Divorce filings.
Medical billing statements.
Information she had no legitimate reason to possess.
Then I found a thread from three months earlier.
VANESSA: She gets the CEO chair, you become irrelevant.
ADRIAN: I’m aware.
VANESSA: Edward can fix that.
ADRIAN: No illegal moves.
VANESSA: Everything is illegal when losers write the rules.
Further down:
VANESSA: Phase one = destabilize confidence.
VANESSA: Phase two = evidence.
VANESSA: Phase three = board vote.
ADRIAN: I said no fake evidence.
VANESSA: You won’t care how the crown comes back when you’re wearing it.
I looked up.
“You kept sleeping with her after this?”
He looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His answer was barely audible.
“Because she threatened to send you everything.”
I laughed once.
A broken, humorless sound.
“So your solution to being blackmailed over an affair was to continue the affair.”
“I panicked.”
“For two years?”
He had no response.
I photographed every message.
Then I called Marcus.
“Come to my apartment.”
Adrian grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t.”
I looked down at his hand.
He released me immediately.
“Claire, if you involve corporate counsel tonight, Edward will know we found the phone.”
“How?”
“Because someone inside Whitmore is feeding him information.”
That stopped me.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“My father’s office.”
“Charles?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Adrian looked toward the door.
“My father’s chief financial officer.”
“Thomas Bell?”
He nodded.
Thomas had been with Whitmore for twenty-three years.
He controlled cash management, debt structures, and subsidiary reporting.
If Thomas was involved, he could hide millions.
Maybe more.
My phone rang.
Natalie.
I answered.
Her voice was strained.
“Claire, we have a problem.”
“What?”
“Someone remotely accessed the forensic accounting server.”
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“Was anything deleted?”
“We don’t know yet.”
May you like
Then she said the words that made both Adrian and me go still.
“The login credentials belong to Thomas Bell.”
