Chapter 2
Rafe stopped the man before he reached the hall.
Gideon Cross.
Vivienne’s uncle.
Sixty-three.
Retired financier.
Not retired enough, apparently.
He smiled when my men turned him around.
Wrong reaction.
Too prepared.
I left him there.
Celia mattered first.
I took her into the small library beside the ballroom.
No guests.
No Vivienne.
No Crosses.
She kept pulling her cuff down over the mark.
“You’re safe.”
She nodded without believing me yet.
Fair.
“What exactly happened yesterday?”
Vivienne brought the watch to the servants’ pantry.
Closed the door.
Told Celia to put it on.
Celia refused once.
Vivienne smiled.
Then reminded her that Celia’s mother rented a house owned by an Ashford holding company.
There.
Control through basics.
Classic.
“Wear it, or your mother gets thirty days.”
Celia put it on.
Vivienne placed a black receiver beside her phone.
For several minutes, nothing.
Then the watch warmed.
The receiver crackled.
Gideon’s voice.
Signal is clean.
Celia heard more.
“Once Lucian wears it, keep him talking near the study.”
I stared.
My study.
Not dinner.
Not public conversation.
Private.
“What else?”
Celia hesitated.
“He said they needed three nights.”
Three nights of listening.
Three nights after the engagement.
Three nights before Vivienne and I were scheduled to sign off on a major internal restructuring.
Interesting.
“What restructuring?”
Celia did not know.
But she remembered one phrase.
“Second signature.”
I went still.
There were only two people whose signatures mattered in the Ashford succession vault.
Mine.
And one dormant signature belonging to my late father.
A provision nobody outside my innermost family should know.
Yet Gideon Cross apparently did.
I returned to the ballroom.
Vivienne stood beside the head table.
The watch remained where I left it.
I looked at her.
“Three nights.”
Her face changed.
Good.
Then I looked at Gideon.
“Second signature.”
May you like
His smile disappeared.
Better.
