Chapter Two

The office door was airtight, shutting out all the noise from outside.

The central air blew silently, but I couldn’t feel the chill at all. All I could feel was Noah’s burning-hot body in my arms, reminding me how cruel reality was.

Margaret’s presence spread over the room like an invisible net.

She didn’t lash out right away, and she didn’t lose control and demand answers.

She just stood, walked around the enormous desk, and came over to me.

In that suffocating silence, she reached out, a little stiffly, and touched Noah’s forehead.

The instant her fingertips met his burning skin, her brows drew together hard.

That small gesture let my strung-tight nerves loosen, just for a moment.

She was his grandmother, after all.

“It looks like acute pneumonia. He needs a hospital right now.”

She didn’t ask me anything. She just picked up the phone, her voice back to its usual cool authority.

“Have Dr. Bennett come to my office immediately. Tell him to bring his emergency kit.”

Only after she hung up did she turn back to me.

Those eyes, which made ruthless decisions in boardrooms every day, were like two sharp scalpels now, ready to slice me open and see what was inside.

“Jillian.”

She finally spoke, her voice cold as ice. Cold and hard.

“You have some nerve.”

I met her gaze, holding my drowsy son. I was soaked in sweat and a total mess, but my back was perfectly straight.

“Colin gave me this nerve.”

I laughed coldly. There was an exhaustion and a rasp in my voice I hadn’t even noticed.

“If I hadn’t been pushed to the edge, do you think I’d want to carry my only son in here and put on a show everyone would despise me for?”

“If I didn’t make a scene today, what would happen to me? Your wonderful assistant would chase me out of Whitmore like a stray dog. And then my son and I really would be the ’little bastard’ and his mother, with nothing to do with the Whitmore family ever again.”

“Mrs. Whitmore, who’s been running the smarter numbers here? Your son, or me?”

Margaret’s face grew darker and darker.

She said nothing. The only sound in the office was our breathing as we faced each other down.

Dr. Bennett arrived quickly with a full set of equipment. He was obviously the Whitmore family’s private physician.

He paused for a moment when he saw the scene inside, but he was too much of a professional to ask a single question. He immediately began examining Noah and sponging him down to bring the fever down.

Margaret watched coldly from the side and said nothing.

While wiping Noah down, Dr. Bennett gently unclasped a thin chain from his wrist.

I’d had it blessed by the priest on the day Noah was baptized, hoping it would keep him safe.

It had darkened from being worn so long. On it hung a small, unremarkable gold medal.

It was no bigger than a fingernail. One side was engraved with a family crest. The other bore two elegant initials: N.W.

The chain slipped, and the little gold medal dropped onto the polished floor with a clear, bright clink.

I reached down for it on instinct.

But someone was faster.

The instant Margaret saw the medal, her pupils shrank.

She practically lunged forward and bent to snatch it up.

Her fingers were trembling.

“This... how did this... how does he have this?”

For the first time, her voice shook. In that moment she wasn’t the untouchable chairwoman anymore. She was just an old woman too stunned to speak.

Watching her lose her composure, the resentment I’d been holding in for so long finally found a way out.

Calmly, cruelly even, I told her the truth.

“It’s the Whitmore baptismal medal, for the firstborn grandson. Five years ago, you gave it to Colin with your own hands and told him to give it to his future wife.”

I paused and watched her mouth fall slightly open in shock.

“And on the day I gave birth to Noah, he tossed it onto my hospital bed.”

“He said it was what Noah was owed. And the only thing he would ever give him.”

What I was really telling her was this:

Margaret, the son you’re so proud of isn’t just cruel to his wife. He’s been lying to you, his own mother, too.

For five years, right under your nose, he’s been setting up a game that’s his alone.

And my son and I are nothing but pieces on his board, to be sacrificed whenever he likes.

Margaret clenched the little gold medal so tightly that its edges dug into her palm.

She stared at me. The shock, the anger, the suspicion in her eyes all sank into something dark and bottomless.

At last she understood. Behind this whole scene was a huge secret about her son, one she had never even brushed against.