An Understated Dominance novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Morning After

I read the article twice, sitting in the back seat with my shirt buttoned wrong.

Colter read it over my shoulder with his jaw set.

"Fieldwell founder Thea Forsberg has built a eleven-year legend as a self-made woman," the piece said.

"But sources close to the Harcourt deal say her husband, Colter Merrow, quietly bankrolled the company."

"They say he is heir to the Merrow Freight fortune."

"One investor calls her rise a very expensive hobby."

"Another asks whether the founder ever built anything at all."

There was a photo of the two of us at the party.

I looked furious.

He looked like a man being sent to prison.

"Russell," I said.

"Probably."

"He leaked it to the press the same morning he stood in your office."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because he's been told to make you feel small," Colter said.

"My father taught him that you can move a person faster with shame than with money."

I snatched my coat from the floor and shoved my arms into it.

"Here are my terms," I said.

"Thea."

"Quiet. Terms."

I climbed out of the car into the cold garage.

He got out the other side.

"One. You don't fix this."

"Understood."

"Two. You don't call anyone. Not a lawyer, not a reporter, not your father."

"Understood."

"Three. I'm still divorcing you."

"Understood."

"And four." My voice shook, and I made it stop. "That was my choice. In there. It doesn't mean what you think."

"It means you're alive," he said. "That's what I think."

I turned away before my face could do something foolish.

"Stay out of the building," I said.

I drove to work alone and did not look in the mirror.

Reporters stood outside Fieldwell's front doors.

There were four of them, then six, and a camera van from the local station with its mast raised.

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