Chapter 4 - Jasmine Comes to My Door
Daniel Mercer saw the flash drive.
Then he saw Jasmine.
Everything changed in his face.
“What are you doing?”
Jasmine moved behind Nathan.
Nathan answered calmly.
“Leaving.”
Daniel’s eyes fixed on me.
“Claire, whatever she gave you belongs to Prescott Global.”
“Then your attorneys can contact mine.”
“It contains privileged corporate information.”
Nathan held out his hand.
“We’ll preserve it appropriately.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“Give it back.”
“No.”
One word.
Mine.
I had spent years softening everything I said.
No had become I’ll think about it.
I disagree had become Maybe there’s another way.
That day, I remembered how clean a sentence could be.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“You don’t understand what you’re involving yourself in.”
“I think that’s been the problem.”
We left.
Nathan did not let me open the files ourselves.
Chain of custody, he said.
His forensic team reviewed them.
By evening, we had the answer.
The file wasn’t a plan to marry me.
Not exactly.
It was worse in a quieter way.
It was a profile.
My education.
My family.
My grandfather.
My social connections.
My estimated inheritance.
My relationship status.
At the bottom:
Potential relationship access to Halcyon decision-makers.
I stared at the words.
Nathan sat beside me.
“Aaron could argue this was ordinary business intelligence.”
“Do you believe that?”
“What I believe doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
He hesitated.
“No.”
Neither did I.
The next morning, Aaron came to my parents’ house.
My father met him outside.
I watched through the window.
Aaron didn’t try to push past him.
He simply stood there.
Eventually my father came inside.
“He wants five minutes.”
“No.”
“He says he’ll wait.”
“Then he’ll get cold.”
Two hours later, he was still there.
I finally went outside.
Aaron looked terrible.
“Five minutes.”
“Start talking.”
“I knew Prescott had researched your family.”
My chest tightened.
“But?”
“But I didn’t ask you out because of Halcyon.”
“Then why was my profile attached to your strategy meeting?”
“Daniel made those files on everyone connected to Halcyon.”
“Everyone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you date everyone?”
His jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Convenient.”
“Claire, I met you at the museum fundraiser.”
“I remember.”
“I liked you.”
“After reading a corporate profile about me.”
“I had forgotten the profile.”
I laughed.
It was the first time I had laughed since leaving him.
Not because it was funny.
Because it was absurd.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to believe that people can do two things for different reasons.”
I looked at him.
“And Jasmine?”
His expression darkened.
“I didn’t sleep with her.”
“You kissed her.”
His face changed.
So Jasmine had told the truth.
“That was a mistake.”
“A mistake is taking the wrong exit.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
For once, he didn’t defend himself.
“I liked the attention.”
There it was.
“I liked people thinking she wanted me. I liked having someone at work who looked at me the way you stopped looking at me.”
My anger sharpened.
“I stopped looking at you because you stopped coming home.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to neglect someone and then blame them for noticing.”
“I know.”
Again.
No defense.
Strangely, that made him look smaller.
“I was selfish.”
“Yes.”
“I was arrogant.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you’d always be there.”
“Yes.”
He swallowed.
“I was wrong.”
“Yes.”
His eyes reddened.
“I love you.”
I felt nothing comforting in the words.
Maybe because love without respect had become too expensive.
“I believe you think you do.”
He flinched.
“That’s cruel.”
“No, Aaron. Cruel was making me question reality every time you came home smelling like someone else’s perfume.”
“I never slept with her.”
“You wanted me to think you might have.”
He had no answer.
That was the part I could not forgive.
Not yet.
Maybe never.
I went inside.
That evening, Jasmine called.
She was crying.
“Daniel suspended me.”
“For what?”
“Unauthorized removal of corporate documents.”
Nathan took over immediately.
By morning, Jasmine had employment counsel.
By afternoon, Prescott Global’s board had learned that documents potentially relevant to a pending legal dispute had been scheduled for deletion.
The story was no longer a marriage scandal.
It was becoming a governance problem.
Then my father called.
“Claire, come downstairs.”
I found him holding another document from my grandfather’s archive.
“What is it?”
“A letter agreement.”
Between Halcyon and Prescott Global.
Dated four years earlier.
The negotiations had progressed further than we realized.
Prescott wanted access to a financing facility.
Halcyon refused.
But the final page contained a handwritten note from my grandfather.
Never permit D.M. access to Claire’s trust.
D.M.
Daniel Mercer.
Nathan arrived thirty minutes later.
He read the note.
“Your grandfather knew him.”
My father nodded slowly.
“Apparently.”
“But why warn specifically about Claire’s trust?”
Nobody knew.
We searched the remaining files.
Near midnight, I found a photograph.
My grandfather.
Aaron’s father.
Daniel Mercer.
All three standing outside a conference room.
On the back, my grandfather had written:
Robert means well.
Daniel does not.
Protect Claire.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
“Mrs. Prescott?”
“Yes?”
“You don’t know me.”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Michael Grant. I worked for your grandfather.”
I looked at Nathan.
The voice continued.
“I heard you found the Halcyon file.”
“How?”
“Because Daniel Mercer called me tonight.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know whether your grandfather ever told me what really happened to the Prescott deal.”
I stopped breathing.
“What really happened?”
There was a long pause.
Then Michael said:
“Claire, your grandfather didn’t reject Prescott Global.”
Nathan stood.
Michael lowered his voice.
May you like
“He rejected Daniel Mercer.”
Then someone knocked three times on my parents’ front door.
