Chapter 2 - The Man Who Married Me
The plane waiting on the private runway belonged to my father.
I hadn't seen it in four years.
The last time I had boarded it, I was twenty-six and furious.
I had screamed at Warren Bellamy that I wasn't going to spend my life being introduced as his daughter.
He had simply looked at me and said:
“One day you'll understand why I wanted you to disappear.”
I thought I understood now.
I didn't.
The flight to Boston took three hours.
I spent most of it staring at the photograph on my phone.
Reid outside the hotel.
The woman beside him.
The document.
My name.
I finally turned to Nolan.
“Tell me everything.”
He sat across from me.
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“Your father wants to tell you himself.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course he does.”
Nolan didn't smile.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“Your father never believed Reid married you by accident.”
My stomach tightened.
“You're saying he knew?”
“He suspected.”
“Then why didn't he warn me?”
“Because you ordered him not to interfere.”
I remembered.
Four years earlier.
My father had stood in my apartment doorway.
“Who is he?”
“His name is Reid Kessler.”
“What's his family worth?”
“I don't care.”
“I didn't ask whether you care.”
I had slammed the door.
The memory suddenly felt different.
Maybe he hadn't been trying to control me.
Maybe he had been trying to protect me.
When we landed in Boston, two black SUVs were waiting.
I stared through the window.
Men in dark suits stood beside them.
My father had never liked ordinary entrances.
Nolan opened the door.
I stepped onto the tarmac.
A familiar voice said my name.
“Audrey.”
I froze.
My father stood twenty feet away.
Warren Bellamy was seventy-one.
Tall.
Silver-haired.
Straight-backed.
He looked older than I remembered.
But his eyes hadn't changed.
They were the same eyes that had watched me leave four years ago.
I walked toward him.
He didn't move.
Neither did I.
Then he opened his arms.
I hated him.
I loved him.
I had missed him.
And suddenly I was twelve years old again.
I stepped into his embrace.
He held me carefully.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered.
I closed my eyes.
“You're too late.”
“I know.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You knew what Reid was doing.”
“I knew what he intended.”
I pulled away.
“Then why didn't you stop him?”
My father looked at me.
“Because you would have hated me.”
“I hate you now.”
“I know.”
That answer broke something inside me.
He turned.
“Come inside.”
The Bellamy estate overlooked the Atlantic.
It wasn't a mansion.
It was a fortress pretending to be a home.
Inside, everything looked exactly as I remembered.
The dark wood.
The paintings.
The enormous staircase.
The library where my father had taught me how to read financial reports before I was fifteen.
I stopped in front of one painting.
My mother.
I touched the frame.
“When did you last see her?”
“Before she died.”
“You still blame yourself.”
My father didn't answer.
I turned toward him.
“Show me the document.”
He nodded.
We entered the library.
He opened a safe hidden behind a bookshelf.
Inside was a folder.
He placed it on the desk.
I opened it.
My breath caught.
The first document was a corporate acquisition agreement.
The buyer was Kessler Strategic Partners.
The seller was a shell company.
The target?
Bellamy Holdings.
I stared at the date.
Six months before Reid proposed to me.
“Reid was planning to acquire my company.”
My father nodded.
“He didn't know you were the majority beneficiary.”
My eyes lifted.
“What?”
My father sat down.
“Your mother left you forty-nine percent of Bellamy Holdings.”
I stared at him.
“But you control the company.”
“I control the voting shares.”
“For now.”
He nodded.
“Until your thirtieth birthday.”
I did the math.
My birthday was six weeks away.
I looked at him.
“That's why Reid wanted me married before then.”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to tilt.
My entire marriage had suddenly become a business strategy.
“What about Tessa?”
“She was hired.”
My heart stopped.
“By whom?”
My father pushed another photograph across the desk.
Tessa.
Standing beside Reid.
But this photograph had been taken seven years earlier.
Long before I met either of them.
“She was already working with him.”
I looked at the photograph again.
Then I saw something else.
A man standing behind them.
Older.
Gray suit.
I recognized him.
“That's Victor Hale.”
My father nodded.
“Reid's uncle.”
“The chairman of Kessler Strategic?”
“Yes.”
I slowly sat down.
My father leaned forward.
“Audrey, Reid didn't marry you because he loved you.”
“I know.”
“He married you because he thought you were the easiest way into Bellamy Holdings.”
I swallowed.
“And now?”
My father looked at the clock.
“Now he's about to lose everything.”
My phone rang.
Nolan answered it.
His face changed.
He handed me the phone.
“It's Dallas.”
I put it to my ear.
A man's voice whispered:
“Mrs. Kessler?”
“Yes.”
“Your husband just held an emergency board meeting.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did he do?”
“He announced that you are mentally unstable.”
I closed my eyes.
The voice continued.
“And he filed for emergency control of your assets.”
I looked at my father.
He smiled.
Not warmly.
Dangerously.
“Good,” he said.
I frowned.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
He stood.
“Let him make his move.”
May you like
Then he walked toward the window.
“Because tomorrow morning, Audrey Bellamy becomes the largest individual shareholder in America.”
