After He Gave My Wedding Away, I Built My Empire novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: What He Kept

Caleb's POV

Rowena Sayre came to my office on Tuesday at nine in the morning, in cream silk, and sat in the chair I had not offered her.

She set a folder on my desk.

"Fourteen of your sixty stores sit in buildings my fund owns," she said. "Did you know that?"

"I know."

"Of course you do. You read leases." She opened the folder and turned it toward me. "The rent on all fourteen reopens in January. I could leave it where it is. I could also triple it."

I didn't touch the folder.

She smiled at that, because she thought it meant I was frightened.

"All I want is a small thing," she said. "Your bay is on a month-to-month sublease from your own warehouse company. End it. Cassandra Broughton goes back to being a woman with a sad story and a very good candle."

"And the leases?"

"Stay exactly as they are. And you stop collecting what you've been collecting."

I kept my hands flat on the blotter.

"Since 2021, you've been asking my distributors questions," she said. "Politely. Quietly. I admire that. It's the only reason I haven't done this sooner."

"You put a tracker on my truck."

"Did I?" She tilted her head. "Is that what you found?"

I had found it Sunday night, under the rear bumper, after I came back from Beaufort and sat in the lot too long.

I hadn't touched it.

It was still on the truck, because a woman who feels safe tells you things.

"You knew where I went Sunday," I said. "You knew about Linnea."

"I know where everyone goes," Rowena said. "It's what a boss is for."

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