PART 2: Millionaire Took His Mistress to a Luxury Island—Then Saw His Pregnant Wife Signing Papers Beside America’s Youngest Billionaire CEO6-019
Chapter 1
PART 2: Millionaire Took His Mistress to a Luxury Island—Then Saw His Pregnant Wife Signing Papers Beside America’s Youngest Billionaire CEO6-019
PART 2
Grace glanced once at Vanessa.
Not at her face.
At the red silk sleeve gathered where Vanessa had hurriedly pulled her arm away from Ethan.
Then Grace looked back at her husband.
“I’m here for a meeting.”
Ethan stared at the black leather folder in her hand.
“With Declan Pierce?”
“Yes.”
“What meeting?”
Grace’s expression barely changed.
“One I’m already late for.”
Ethan glanced at Declan.
He had met the billionaire twice before, both times at crowded industry dinners. Declan had been polite, reserved, and impossible to read. He was not smiling now, but neither did he appear interested in whatever private disaster was unfolding in front of him.
He simply stood beside Grace as if waiting for her decision.
That bothered Ethan more than open hostility would have.
“Grace,” Ethan said quietly, “we need to talk.”
“We do.”
Relief flickered through him.
“Then—”
“Not here.”
Her voice remained calm.
“And not now.”
The elevator doors opened.
Declan placed one hand against the door to keep it from closing.
Grace stepped inside.
Ethan followed one pace.
“What papers are those?”
For the first time, something shifted in Grace’s eyes.
Not anger.
Weariness.
“You never asked before.”
The doors closed between them.
Ethan remained standing in the marble lobby.
Vanessa approached slowly.
“Ethan.”
He did not move.
“Did you know she was coming here?” Vanessa asked.
“No.”
“Do you know why she’s with Pierce?”
“No.”
A few guests crossed the lobby behind them, laughing as they headed toward the terrace.
The quartet continued playing.
Everything around Ethan remained elegant, calm, absurdly normal.
Vanessa touched his arm.
“We should go upstairs.”
Ethan pulled away without thinking.
Vanessa’s hand dropped.
She stared at him.
Four days earlier, that touch would have excited him.
Now he barely felt it.
“I need to make a call.”
“To Grace?”
“To my office.”
He walked toward the quieter end of the lobby and called his chief financial officer.
No answer.
He called his general counsel.
Straight to voicemail.
Then he called his assistant, Melissa Grant.
She answered on the second ring.
“Mr. Calloway?”
“Where’s Robert?”
A pause.
“At the quarterly planning retreat.”
“With whom?”
Another pause.
Ethan closed his eyes.
“Melissa.”
“The executive committee.”
“At Halcyon Crown?”
“Yes.”
His eyes opened.
“You knew?”
“I assumed you knew.”
“I told everyone I was in New York.”
Melissa went silent.
The implication settled between them.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“Why is Grace here?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“What do you know?”
“Mr. Calloway, I think you should speak to Grace.”
“Melissa.”
He heard papers moving on the other end.
Finally she said, “Pierce Global submitted a strategic partnership proposal six weeks ago.”
Ethan frowned.
“For Calloway Communications?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Northlight.”
For several seconds, Ethan said nothing.
The name belonged to another life.
Grace’s life before him.
Northlight Systems had begun eleven years earlier in the spare bedroom of a rented apartment in Boston.
Grace Mercer had been twenty-four.
She and her college friend Priya Shah had built software designed to help mid-sized manufacturers predict supply delays before they occurred.
Grace wrote much of the early forecasting architecture herself.
Priya understood sales.
Grace understood patterns.
For three years they lived on cheap coffee, investor rejections, and the conviction that they had created something useful.
Then Grace’s father became ill.
She returned home.
Northlight survived, but barely.
Priya kept it operating.
Grace remained the largest individual shareholder but stopped working full-time.
After she married Ethan, the company became something he occasionally described to friends as “Grace’s old tech project.”
He had never meant it cruelly.
At least, that was what he told himself now.
“What does Pierce want with Northlight?” Ethan asked.
“You’d have to ask them.”
“Why does my company’s executive committee care?”
“Because Northlight holds the forecasting license used in three of our largest distribution contracts.”
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
“I know that.”
But as soon as he said it, he realized he did not know it.
Not really.
His operations team handled software licensing.
Grace had once tried to explain how Northlight’s new predictive model could reduce Calloway’s shipping costs.
He remembered the conversation because it had happened over dinner.
He had answered two emails while she spoke.
Eventually Grace stopped explaining.
“What proposal?” he asked.
Melissa hesitated.
“Pierce Global wants to acquire a controlling interest in Northlight.”
Ethan looked toward the elevators.
“And Grace?”
“Grace owns thirty-eight percent personally. The Mercer family trust holds another eleven.”
Forty-nine percent.
Ethan knew she had shares.
He had not known how many.
He certainly had not known what they were worth.
“How much?”
“Excuse me?”
“What is Pierce offering?”
May you like
“I don’t think I should discuss Grace’s private financial information.”
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