The Perfect Husband's Darkest Secret novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Clause Nine

My lawyer drove out to the lake house that night with a copy of my father's will in her bag.

We read it at the kitchen table after Poppy fell asleep.

Clause nine was one paragraph long.

*If a court finds my daughter Emmeline unable to manage her affairs, her voting rights and trust income pass to her spouse for as long as the finding stands.*

I read it once and put my hand flat over the page.

"My father wrote that?"

"He wrote it after your mother's illness," my lawyer said. "He was afraid you'd inherit it. He thought he was protecting you."

"He thought he was handing the company to a good man."

"Yes."

She did not say the rest.

If a doctor declared me unwell, Dalton would have my fifty-one percent.

He would have my daughter.

He would have the whole company, and I would be sitting in a quiet room with a cup of tea.

"The hearing is Monday," she said. "We have a thermos report and a pharmacy statement. I would rather have a confession."

"I'll get one," I said.

She left at ten.

Ansel stayed at the table with the will in front of him and his arms crossed.

"Let me call a reporter," he said.

"No."

"One call, Emme. I have a man at the *Ledger* who has been waiting six years for a Dalton Reeve story. We put the lab report and the pharmacy strip on the front page. He's finished by morning."

"And the doctor says I'm a paranoid woman who is dragging her husband through the papers."

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