Page 158 of Theirs to Tempt: The Marriage Claim

Lucian is too. “Fuck.”

His curse echoes off the ceiling.

Chapter Forty-Four

Sophie

For a moment, no one moves.

Lucian’s curse seems to hang in the air while I look from him to Caleb and back again. Neither man is watching me. Their attention remains fixed on the notation at the bottom of the organizational chart.

Also known as Hawthorne & Pierce.

There are dozens of questions I could ask, but only one matters. “What does that mean?”

Caleb’s jaw tightens.

Lucian finally looks at me.

And I know.

The answer is there before he says a word, in the careful stillness of his body and the complete absence of surprise on his face.

“Alder Strategic Holdings is you.”

“It was an entity we controlled.”

The distinction is so perfectly Lucian that under any other circumstances I might laugh.

Instead, I go cold.

Shaking, my world splintering, I turn back to the computer and stare at the chart again. Alder at the top. Subsidiaries beneath it. Different names, different legal firms, different addresses. Enough separation that someone moving quickly through the records would never have reason to connect them.

Unless someone had wanted the connection found.

“Voss wrote this.”

“No doubt,” Lucian agrees.

Behind me, Caleb moves closer, but he stops several feet away. Neither of them touches me.

I’m grateful for that. I don’t think I could bear their hands on me right now.

My gaze returns to the files I’ve spent hours analyzing, the loans that changed hands and the credit that appeared and disappeared with timing too precise to be accidental.

I scroll back several pages.

“This one.”

Neither man responds.

I turn the laptop so they can see the screen. “Dad had access to a line of credit. It was reduced. Within weeks, Alder stepped in with more expensive money.”

Lucian’s expression doesn’t change. “Yes.”

“You arranged that?”

“We didn’t control the first lender.”