Chapter 1 - Under the Table
Sebastian Bellamy came home for one folder and found his eight-months-pregnant wife on her knees beneath his mother’s dining table.
Clara’s dusty-pink satin dress was streaked with gravy. A broken plate lay beside her. One arm covered her belly while the other reached for pieces of meat Eleanor Bellamy had kicked beneath the table.
Six women from Eleanor’s charity circle sat around the lavish dinner, some laughing, others pretending not to see.
Eleanor had Clara by the hair.
“Under the table is where women who live off my son belong.”
Sebastian’s briefcase slipped from his hand.
“Mom.”
Clara looked toward him.
Relief crossed her face so sharply that something inside him broke.
She tried to reach for him.
Eleanor slapped her hand away and scattered another fistful of leftovers across the marble.
“She gave you an heir,” Eleanor said. “Stop pretending she deserves anything else.”
Sebastian crossed the room.
He pulled Clara carefully upright, wrapped his suit jacket around her shoulders, then put both hands beneath the edge of the banquet table.
“Sebastian, don’t you—”
He flipped it.
China shattered.
Wine splashed across the marble.
The women scrambled backward as silverware, flowers, and food crashed between them.
“Get out.”
Eleanor stared at her son.
“This is my house too.”
“No. It isn’t.”
The Oak Brook property had belonged solely to Sebastian since before his marriage. Eleanor had a gate code because he had never imagined he would need to keep his own mother out.
Clara clung to his sleeve.
“Sebastian.”
Her voice carried fear rather than relief now.
He followed her gaze.
His supposedly sealed Bellamy Medical Group transaction folder sat open beside Eleanor’s purse.
One page was missing.
Across the room, the small home-security camera above the built-in cabinetry faced the dining area.
Sebastian pulled out his phone.
Eleanor lunged.
“Give me that.”
He blocked her with one arm.
The security system had been installed after a burglary the previous year. Clara hated it and usually kept interior recording disabled.
Tonight it was running.
Sebastian opened the earlier footage.
Eleanor’s voice came through first.
“Take the contract page before Sebastian comes back. He never suspects family.”
The laughing stopped.
Sebastian rewound.
In the dining-room mirror, behind Eleanor’s shoulder, his younger brother Julian stepped through the service doorway.
He opened the folder.
Removed one page.
Slipped it beneath his jacket.
Sebastian froze the image.
“What page?”
Eleanor said nothing.
Clara suddenly gripped his wrist.
“Don’t ask her here.”
He looked at his wife.
She was pale.
“Why?”
May you like
Clara swallowed.
“Because I think they already put my name on whatever they’re trying to hide.”
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