Chapter 3 - The Cold Dinner Table
Downstairs, the atmosphere in the formal dining room was a masterclass in suffocating tension.
Audrey descended the stairs twenty minutes later, having left Micah sleeping soundly on the floor mattress with her cashmere cardigan pulled over him like a security blanket. She had changed into a tailored charcoal pantsuit, her dark hair pinned back into a sleek, immaculate French twist.
When she entered the dining room, Lorraine was already seated at the head of the table, while Sabrina sat beside Graham, buttering a roll with breezy nonchalance.
“Oh, you’re finally joining us,” Lorraine remarked without looking up from her soup bowl. “The roast beef is getting cold. Honestly, Audrey, if you’re going to spend twenty months abandoning your marital home, you could at least have the decency to be punctual for dinner.”
Audrey pulled out a chair opposite Graham, sitting down with deliberate, agonizing slowness. She folded her hands on the mahogany surface and looked around the table.
“Where is Theo?” Audrey asked, her voice dangerously calm.
Sabrina paused, her knife hovering over the butter dish. A smug, superior smile touched the corners of her painted lips. “I put him to bed early in the guest suite upstairs. He had a long day playing in the yard. Unlike some children, Theo actually enjoys fresh air and activities.”
Audrey did not blink. “That’s interesting, considering the guest suite on the second floor has a private en-suite bathroom, custom drapery, and an orthopedic mattress, while my son is sleeping on a bare floor behind a bolted gate.”
Graham winced, dropping his fork against his plate with a sharp clatter. “Audrey, stop it. We’ve discussed this. Micah needs discipline. The doctors—the specialists Mom brought in—said he lacks boundaries.”
“What specialists?” Audrey asked, her eyes narrowing. “Give me their names, their medical license numbers, and the clinic affiliation.”
Lorraine slammed her spoon down, her face flushing with indignant rage. “How dare you use that tone in my son’s house! For twenty months, while you were gallivanting around the Pacific Northwest playing corporate executive, I was the one changing diapers, managing households, and picking up the pieces of your broken family! We brought Theo in to give Micah a companion, to stimulate his social skills, and this is how you repay us? With suspicion and hostility?”
Audrey let out a short, cold laugh that made Lorraine recoil.
“A companion,” Audrey repeated, her voice dripping with venom. “You brought your son’s bastard child and his mistress into my home, relegated my four-year-old son to a storage cell, and expected me to walk in with a casserole and say thank you?”
“Watch your language, Audrey!” Graham barked, slamming his fist on the table. “Sabrina is a guest here—!”
“Sabrina is an interloper squatting in my home on my husband’s salary,” Audrey interrupted, her voice rising just enough to command the entire room. She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “And you, Graham, seem to have forgotten a very fundamental detail about Keller Northstar and everything you own.”
Sabrina scoffed, tossing her head back. “Oh, please. Graham is the CEO. His father built this company. You’re just an employee he married.”
Audrey turned her gaze slowly toward Sabrina, a predatory smile touching her lips.
“Is that what Graham told you?” Audrey asked softly. “Did he tell you that when Keller Northstar was on the brink of bankruptcy eighteen months ago, bleeding twenty million dollars in liquidity, the board of directors refused to bail him out? Did he tell you that I was the one who personally secured the emergency underwriting from the Seattle shipping syndicates?”
Graham’s face turned the color of ash.
“Audrey, don't—”
“In exchange for saving his company from liquidation,” Audrey continued, her voice ringing clear and merciless through the dining room, “the board transferred sixty-five percent of the voting shares into a private holding trust under my exclusive control. Graham is not the owner of Keller Northstar, Sabrina. He is an at-will employee whose continued employment depends entirely on my signature.”
The silence in the dining room became suffocating.
Sabrina’s fork slipped from her fingers, clattering against her plate. She turned to Graham, her eyes wide with sudden, sickening panic. “Graham? What is she talking about? You said your family owned everything!”
Graham looked away, unable to meet either woman’s eyes.
Audrey stood up slowly from her chair, smoothing the lapels of her jacket.
May you like
“Enjoy your dinner,” Audrey said smoothly. “Because tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, the locks on the corporate headquarters change, the asset audit begins, and the eviction notices for everyone in this house who isn't wearing Keller blood—or bearing my son’s name—will be served by federal marshals.”
She turned and walked out of the dining room, leaving the three of them sitting in the wreckage of their stolen paradise.
