. CHAPTER 6 — What the Camera Heard
Martin placed a tablet on the coffee table and tapped the screen.
Caleb’s own voice filled the room.
You’ll keep a generous apartment. A driver for one year. And enough money to stay comfortable.
The recording continued.
This marriage has become a liability. You are emotionally unstable, socially isolated, and unfit to influence Vale Holdings.
No one moved.
The words sounded different when played back. Without Caleb’s smile to polish them, without his height and charm to frame them, they became what they had always been: threats.
One board member, Elaine Porter, removed her glasses and looked at Caleb with open disgust. “You told us Mara was stepping back voluntarily.”
“She is,” Caleb said too fast. “This is taken out of context.”
Martin tapped again.
Sienna’s voice played next.
Caleb warned me you were attached to things that were never really yours.
Sienna went pale.
Mara watched her carefully. The woman in red had arrived prepared to replace a wife. She had not arrived prepared to become evidence.
Caleb pointed at the tablet. “That recording is illegal.”
“In this residence?” Martin said. “No. The security system was disclosed in every executive occupancy agreement, including the one you signed.”
Caleb opened his mouth, then closed it.
Mara remembered that signature. He had joked about not reading paperwork. She had told him powerful men were ruined by documents they thought were beneath them.
He had laughed.
Now the room was silent enough to hear the city wind pressing against the windows.
Elaine turned to Mara. “How long has this been happening?”
It was the first question that treated her pain as fact, not drama.
Mara wanted to say, Too long. She wanted to say, Since the first time he corrected my memory in public. Since the first time he told me gratitude was all I had earned. Since the first time he made me smaller so he could look taller.
May you like
Instead she said, “Long enough.”
And somehow that was worse.
