Chapter 1 - The Mask Falls in Penthouse A
Grant’s breath caught in his throat,
as his eyes darted from the glowing screen in my hand,
to the absolute,
unwavering calm in my eyes.
He swallowed hard,
his throat moving heavily,
as the color slowly drained from his face,
leaving him looking pale,
hollow,
and suddenly very small.
“Vivienne,”
he whispered again,
his voice cracking slightly,
his hands clutching the silk bedsheets as if trying to anchor himself to reality.
“It’s not what you think,”
he stammered,
using the oldest,
most pathetic line ever spoken by a guilty man.
I did not blink.
I did not raise my voice.
I simply held up the phone,
letting the text message from Piper illuminate the space between us.
“Is it not?”
I asked softly,
my voice as cold and smooth as polished marble.
“Because according to Saint Aurelia Women’s Pavilion,
you are expecting a baby girl this afternoon.”
He sat up quickly,
tangling his legs in the duvet,
his defensive instincts kicking in.
“She’s lying,
Viv!”
he pleaded,
reaching out a hand toward me,
though he did not dare to touch me.
“Piper is unstable.
She’s been stalking me for months,
trying to ruin my life,
trying to ruin us!”
I looked down at him,
feeling a strange,
detached sense of pity.
Not for myself,
but for the man who believed I was stupid enough to fall for such a clumsy lie.
“She didn’t just call the hospital,
Grant,”
I said,
stepping closer to the edge of the bed.
“She gave them our home address.”
914 Fifth Avenue.
Penthouse A.
My father’s property.
The home my family owned long before I ever let Grant Ashford into my life.
“She gave them my corporate insurance policy,”
I continued,
my eyes locking onto his.
“And she put your name down as the father.”
Grant opened his mouth to speak,
his mind racing to construct another narrative,
another deception,
another web of excuses.
“I can explain,”
he breathed,
wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead.
“She set me up.
We had one drink six months ago,
Viv.
Just one drink after the Chicago hotel opening.
I was drunk,
I was stressed,
and she took advantage of me!”
I smiled,
a tight,
crested curve of my lips that did not reach my eyes.
“One drink does not result in a nine-month pregnancy,
Grant.”
I looked down at the phone again.
While his screen was still unlocked,
I swiped away from Piper’s frantic text message.
I didn’t just want to see her texts.
I wanted to see everything.
And that was when I saw the notification from an encrypted messaging app named Signal.
A preview of a message from a contact listed only as ‘V.H.’
The preview read:
‘The Swiss transfer cleared. $14 million has been moved out of the Ashford Heritage Trust.’
My breath hitched,
just for a fraction of a second.
The baby was an insult.
The affair was a betrayal.
But this?
This was high treason.
The Ashford Heritage Trust did not belong to Grant.
It belonged to me.
It was the foundation my late father had built,
the liquid reserves of Ashford-Vane Global,
the multi-billion-dollar luxury hotel empire that Grant had married into.
Grant hadn't just cheated on me with a junior marketing assistant.
He was actively dismantling my father’s legacy,
siphoning millions out of my accounts,
and moving money to an offshore shell entity.
“Vivienne?”
Grant asked,
noticing the sudden change in my posture.
His eyes narrowed with fresh terror as he realized I was looking at something far worse than Piper’s text.
“Give me my phone,”
he demanded,
his tone shifting from desperate begging to subtle authority.
He stood up from the bed,
tall,
imposing,
dressed in his grey silk pajamas.
For seven years,
that authority had worked on me.
For seven years,
I had believed he was the protective,
brilliant businessman who carried the weight of our family business on his shoulders.
Now,
he just looked like a thief wearing expensive silk.
“No,”
I said quietly.
I didn’t run.
I didn’t retreat.
I stood my ground,
holding the device tightly in my right hand.
“You stay right there,
Grant.”
“Vivienne,
hand me the phone!”
he yelled,
taking a step toward me,
his face flushing red with anger.
“You have no right to go through my private business!”
“Private business?”
I repeated,
my voice dropping an octave,
vibrating with absolute rage.
“Stealing fourteen million dollars from my father’s trust is not private business,
Grant.”
“It’s grand larceny.”
He froze.
The silence in Penthouse A was deafening.
The ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer sounded like a ticking time bomb.
Outside,
the morning traffic of Manhattan hummed,
completely oblivious to the war breaking out inside our seventy-million-dollar penthouse.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,”
he stammered,
his hands dropping to his sides.
“That was an investment transfer.
A corporate restructuring.
I did it for us!”
“For us?”
I laughed,
a dry,
bitter sound that bounced off the high plaster ceilings.
“Who is V.H.,
Grant?”
He didn't answer.
He couldn't answer.
Because we both knew who V.H. was.
Vance Holdings.
Or rather,
Victor Vale.
Piper Vale’s older brother.
The man Grant had hired three months ago to oversee our luxury resort developments in the Caribbean.
It wasn't just an affair.
It was a joint criminal enterprise.
Grant and Piper were stealing my family’s fortune,
dollar by dollar,
million by million,
using her brother as the front man for offshore shell corporations.
And they were going to use my money,
my home,
and my reputation to raise their illegitimate child.
“You thought I was weak,”
I said,
looking him up and down.
“You thought because I stayed in the background,
because I let you be the public face of Ashford Hotels,
that I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Vivienne,
please,”
Grant begged,
falling back onto the edge of the mattress,
his head in his hands.
“Don’t do anything rash.
We have the Ashford Children’s Foundation Gala tonight.”
“Two hundred guests are coming.”
“The press will be there.”
“The board of directors will be there.”
“If you cause a scene today,
you will ruin the stock price!”
“You will ruin everything your father built!”
He was trying to use my father’s legacy to guilt me into silence.
He was trying to use my own pride against me.
I looked at him,
and for the first time in seven years,
I saw him clearly.
He was a parasite.
A clever,
handsome parasite who had fed on my wealth,
my status,
and my silence.
“Get dressed,
Grant,”
I said,
my voice cold,
flat,
and completely devoid of emotion.
He looked up,
startled.
“What?”
“Get dressed,”
I repeated.
“You have a gala to prepare for.”
“And I have a hospital to visit.”
I turned on my heel and walked out of the bedroom,
May you like
locking his phone inside my purse,
leaving him alone in the quiet darkness of our master suite.
