Chapter 4
I pressed the tip of the fountain pen against the thick parchment. I signed my name.
I capped the pen. I pushed the document across the mahogany table.
Theo picked it up. He adjusted his glasses, running a finger down the margin of the page.
"Effective at midnight on the thirty-first," Theo read, his voice filling the quiet conference room. "The exclusive intellectual property license granted to Vale & Reyes is formally terminated."
Dorian gripped the edge of the table. He turned to his attorney.
"Finch, fix this," Dorian demanded.
Finch wiped a bead of sweat from his temple. He refused to look at Dorian. "My hands are tied. The original contract gives her unilateral termination rights. She owns the patents, Mr. Vale. We only rent them."
"I am the CEO!" Dorian shouted.
"Of the retail shell," Theo corrected smoothly. "Not the designs."
Celeste stepped forward. She bypassed Finch entirely and slapped a blue folder onto the table. She slid it toward me.
"Fifteen million," Celeste said. Her voice lacked its usual polished edge. "We buy the patents outright. You walk away clean."
I looked at the folder. I didn't open it.
I placed my fingertips on the cardboard cover and pushed it back across the glass. It stopped inches from Celeste’s hand.
"They aren't for sale," I said.
"Twenty million," Celeste countered, her jaw tightening. "Margot, be rational. You are throwing away generational wealth over a bruised ego."
"My ego is fine," I replied. "Your inventory is the problem."
Dorian stood up. He walked around his chair, stopping a few feet from me. The arrogant bluster from this morning had vanished, replaced by a frantic, wide-eyed desperation.
"Margot, please," Dorian pleaded. He lowered his voice, attempting a tone of intimacy. "I was stressed. The placeholder comment? I was just trying to get Sienna off my back. She was threatening to pull her father's funding."
"So you lied to her," I said.
"Yes!" Dorian nodded quickly. "It was an angry, stupid lie. I didn't mean it. You know I value you. We're a team."
"A team," I repeated.
"Let's go into the other room," he begged. "Just you and me. We can talk about this privately."
I stood up. I picked up my purse.
"No," I said.
"Margot, you have to listen to me!"
"You called me a placeholder," I said. I met his gaze, letting the silence stretch for a fraction of a second. "But for thirty-six months, you stood in front of a camera and sold my signature. Every pitch, every broadcast, you told the world my name was the only thing that gave this brand value."
Dorian opened his mouth. No sound came out.
"If I'm just holding a spot, Dorian, you should have no problem filling it," I told him. "Let's see if your face can sell jewelry that doesn't exist."
I turned and walked out of the conference room.
***
The lobby of the Vale & Reyes headquarters buzzed with panicked energy. Phones rang incessantly. Junior assistants sprinted past the reception desk carrying stacks of printed emails.
I pushed through the glass double doors.
Chloe, the front desk receptionist, jumped out of her chair. "Ms. Reyes! Dorian sent a company-wide email saying you weren't allowed on the floor."
"I am a fifty percent shareholder, Chloe," I said, not breaking my stride. "His email is void. Call security if you want to test it."
She sank back down into her chair. "Yes, ma'am."
I walked straight to the top floor. My shoes sank into the plush carpet.
I entered my personal office. The space was filled with framed magazine covers and crystal awards. I ignored all of it.
I walked to the wall safe hidden behind a canvas painting. I punched in the six-digit code. The heavy metal door swung open.
I reached inside and pulled out a single, silver hard drive.
"Margot?"
I turned. Marcus, the VP of Operations, stood in my doorway. He held a tablet, his knuckles white.
"The vendors are calling about the winter line," Marcus said. "They need the final schematics."
"Tell them to call Dorian," I said. I slipped the hard drive into my pocket.
"But he doesn't have the schematics," Marcus argued.
"Exactly."
I walked past him, heading directly for the main showroom.
The center of the headquarters featured a massive, eighty-inch 4K display screen. It usually ran continuous promotional loops of our latest campaigns. Right now, it showed Dorian smiling, holding up a diamond tennis bracelet.
I stepped up to the control console beneath the screen.
"Margot, what are you doing?" Marcus asked, following me into the room.
A dozen other employees stopped what they were doing. Their eyes fixed on us.
I pulled the silver hard drive from my pocket. I plugged it into the console's USB port.
"What are you loading into the master system?" Marcus asked.
"The truth," I said.
I dragged a single video file into the primary playback folder. I hit execute.
The screen went black.
Then, Dorian's face filled the eighty-inch display. It was footage from our very first launch event.
"My wife poured her heart into this infinity loop," Dorian's voice boomed through the showroom speakers.
The video cut abruptly. A new clip played.
"Margot's signature style," Dorian said to a live-stream audience.
Another cut.
"Every piece is hand-drawn by my beautiful wife. She is the soul of this brand."
The clips fired in rapid succession. Three years of Dorian Vale looking into a lens, swearing that my talent was the foundation of his empire.
Then, the screen flashed to the dark, grainy footage from last night.
"Don't worry about her," Dorian's voice echoed off the glass display cases. "She's just a placeholder."
The video ended. The screen went black for one second.
Then, it started playing again.
"My wife poured her heart into this infinity loop..."
Dead silence blanketed the showroom. The only sound was Dorian's recorded voice, exposing his own lies on an endless loop.
I reached down and unplugged the silver hard drive. The video continued to play from the system's internal cache.
I turned around.
Fifty employees stood frozen. Nobody moved toward the console. Nobody reached for the power button.
I walked through the crowd. They parted for me without a single word.
I stepped into the elevator and pressed the lobby button. The stainless steel doors began to slide shut.
"She's just a placeholder," the speakers blasted one more time before the doors sealed me in.
I looked down at the silver hard drive resting in my palm. The compilation video I just played was created months before last night's broadcast. I had been saving his footage for a long time.
The real question wasn't what I had just shown them.
It was what else I had saved on this drive.
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