“Where’s Madison?”
“Forty-six.”
Nathaniel’s expression hardened.
He found her in her office standing beside the same printer that had produced Veronica’s ultrasound twelve days earlier.
Madison had placed the glossy image on the conference table.
Beside it sat a closed folder.
Nathaniel entered without knocking.
“You followed me.”
Madison looked up.
“No hello?”
“Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“You know what.”
“I know several things now.”
He shut the door behind him.
For the first time that day, Madison saw fear move behind his anger.
It was small, but unmistakable.
“You had no right to follow me.”
“You stepped out of my car at a red light.”
“I told you I had somewhere to be.”
“You didn’t say it was inside Veronica Hale’s Bentley.”
His jaw tightened at the sound of her name.
Madison nodded toward the ultrasound.
“She has excellent timing.”
Nathaniel looked at the photograph.
Then at Madison.
“It’s complicated.”
“No.
Complicated is a merger involving six jurisdictions.
You are having an affair with a pregnant woman.
That part is extremely simple.”
His face changed.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Madison unlocked her phone and played Veronica’s voice memo.
Nathaniel heard the first sentence and lunged toward the desk.
Madison stopped the audio.
“Where did you get that?”
“Interesting question.”
“She contacted you?”
Nathaniel sounded genuinely alarmed now.
Madison studied him.
He had not known about the ultrasound.
He had not known about the voice memo.
Veronica had been playing both sides of the marriage.
“She contacted my printer,” Madison said.
“What?”
“She sent this to my private office twelve days ago.”
Nathaniel stared at the ultrasound as if seeing it for the first time.
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense if she wanted me angry enough to expose you.”
“No.”
He said it too quickly.
Madison saw the calculation begin.
“When did she tell you she was pregnant?”
Nathaniel looked away.
“When?” Madison repeated.
