Chapter 16 - The Confession
Nicholas looked down at me, and for the first time since I had met him, I saw an unvarnished shadow of shame cross his features.
"Not at first," he admitted, his voice barely louder than a breath. "When I first saw your drawings, I only saw genius. But my father... my real father, who died in exile... left me a journal. He told me that one day, Richard's true bloodline would return to this city. When I ran your mother’s maiden name through the public land deeds, I realized who you were."
Pain flared hot in my chest. "So our meeting wasn't an accident. Our whole relationship... it was a calculated move to take down your grandmother?"
"No!" Nicholas seized both of my hands, his grip tight, almost desperate. "Clara, listen to me. I started the search because I wanted justice for what Eleanor did to my father. But the day I walked into your office and saw you laughing with your sketches, the plan died. I fell in love with you. I tried to walk away twice because I knew how venomous my family was, but I couldn't. I married you to protect you—because under the Blackwood bylaws, Eleanor cannot touch a legal spouse without unanimous board consent."
"Which is why Martha cut her hair," my father said from the back window, watching the trailing headlights behind us. "If Martha proves Clara isn't who she says she is, the marriage is voided under corporate fraud statutes. Eleanor gets total conservatorship over Clara, and Clara disappears into the same asylum Evelyn escaped from."
"She won't get the chance," Evelyn interrupted, checking the screen of a secured satellite phone. "The notary is waiting at the vault in Lake Forest. We have three hours before the international banking day opens in Zurich. If Clara signs the primary accession charter before sunrise, the entire Blackwood conglomerate freezes. Eleanor’s security team will lose their funding before they can fire another round."
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"Look behind us," my father warned, his voice tightening.
Two black Suburbans with tinted windshields and high-beam floodlights had just turned off the ramp, accelerating aggressively down the empty avenue.
