When he said yes, she told him to follow the contracts.
A knock sounded against the still-open conference-room door.
A receptionist stood there beside Tiffany Lowe.
Tiffany wore a fitted red dress beneath a white coat.
Her hair fell in glossy waves over one shoulder.
She looked prepared for Le Bernardin, not a legal conference.
“Mr.
Hayes said I should meet him here,” she told the receptionist.
Then she noticed Genevieve.
Her smile appeared automatically.
“Did she sign?”
No one answered.
Tiffany stepped into the room and saw Martin’s laptop.
The color left her face when she recognized the list of payments.
Preston stood.
“You need to leave.”
“But you said we were finished after today.”
Diane closed her eyes briefly.
Preston moved around the table.
“Tiffany, stop talking.”
“You said the consulting money was approved.”
“Leave.”
“You said Genevieve would take the settlement, and then the apartment would be ours.”
Each sentence landed harder than the one before it.
Genevieve remained seated.
For months, she had imagined confronting Tiffany.
In those private rehearsals, she shouted, demanded answers, and forced the younger woman to admit what she had done.
Now Genevieve felt no desire to compete.
She looked at the red dress, the frightened eyes, and the woman who had mistaken access to Preston for power.
“I signed,” Genevieve said quietly.
“You’re late for dinner.”
Tiffany looked at Preston.
He did not defend her.
He did not reach for her hand.
He simply glared as though she were another document that had betrayed him.
Victor slid a corporate resolution from the folder.
“Hayes Meridian’s independent directors met at eight this morning.
Under the protective provisions attached to the preferred shares, a verified fraud event suspends your voting control pending investigation.”
Preston snatched the resolution.
“You cannot remove me from my own company.”
“The board already has,” Eleanor Blackwood said.
Her voice carried the authority of someone stating a completed fact.
“Effective nine o’clock, you are suspended as chief executive officer.
Your building access, corporate cards, email credentials, and signing authority have been revoked.”
Preston pulled out his phone.
He called his assistant.
The call went to voicemail.
He tried the head of security, then the company’s general counsel.
Neither answered.
Martin’s laptop chimed softly as another access revocation completed.
Preston turned on Diane.
“Stop this.”
She read the resolution twice before responding.
“If these documents are authentic, the board acted within the financing agreements.”
“I hired you.”
“You retained this firm for the divorce.
