He wants to see if we break.
Malcolm’s voice cut through the panic in my head.
I opened my eyes. I looked down at my left hand. The vintage diamond was still there, a heavy, permanent reminder of the man who put it on my finger.
I am not a liability.
I forced my breathing to slow down. I dropped my arms from my waist, standing up straight despite the freezing temperature in the room.
Preston didn't have me killed. If he wanted me dead, the contractors wouldn't have brought me to a pantry. They brought me here to isolate me. They brought me here to wait.
I walked over to the folding chair and sat down.
I didn't scream again. I didn't hit the door. I sat in the dark, my hands resting in my lap, and I waited.
It took twenty minutes.
The lock clicked.
I didn't stand up. I kept my posture perfectly rigid, my chin high, my expression completely blank.
The door opened.
Simon walked into the room.
He wasn't flanked by the security contractors. He was alone. He closed the door behind him, but he didn't lock it. He stood near the entrance, looking at me sitting in the folding chair in the middle of the dark room.
He looked exhausted. The polished, arrogant golden boy from the ballroom was completely gone. His bowtie was crooked, and there was a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.
"Audrey," he said. His voice was quiet, lacking its usual condescension.
"Simon." I didn't raise my voice. I didn't move. "Did your father send you down here to finish the job, or did you just get lost looking for the bathroom?"
Simon flinched. He took a step forward, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers.
"My father doesn't know you're in here," Simon said.
I frowned, the calculation in my brain stalling for a second. "What?"
"The security team works for the holding company, but I paid the shift supervisor to pull you out of the ballroom." Simon rubbed the back of his neck, looking away from me. "I needed to talk to you. Alone. Without Malcolm standing there threatening to break my jaw."
I stared at him.
Preston didn't orchestrate this. Simon did. The coward who ran away from me at the bar actually found the nerve to bribe a security team just to get me in a room.
"You locked me in a pantry, Simon," I said, my voice dripping with absolute disgust. "If you wanted to talk, you could have called my lawyer."
"You blocked my number. You ignored my emails." He took another step forward, his desperation bleeding into the small space between us. "I had to do this, Audrey. You don't understand what’s happening upstairs."
"I understand perfectly. You stole my company, you replaced me with a receptionist, and now you’re upset because I didn't quietly disappear."
"It’s not about the company!" Simon’s voice cracked. He pulled his hands out of his pockets, gesturing wildly. "It’s about Malcolm! Do you have any idea what he just did in the library?"
My heart gave a hard, erratic thump against my ribs. "What did he do?"
"He resigned," Simon whispered, the horror in his voice entirely genuine. "Father tried to use the files on your mother to force him to break the engagement. He told Malcolm he would leak them to the SEC. And Malcolm... Malcolm pulled out a flash drive with every illegal transaction the holding company has made in the last decade. He told Father he would hand it to the feds and burn the entire family to the ground if he ever breathed a word about your mother."
The air left my lungs in a sharp, painful rush.
