Chapter 2 - The Ultimatum
I arrived at our quiet lakefront home at exactly 11:18 p.m.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I thought about the threatening text message regarding Sophie.
Our loyal housekeeper, Maria, was waiting nervously in the foyer.
"Mrs. Mercer?"
She held out a thick manila envelope.
"Mr. Mercer had this delivered by a private courier."
I tore the thick paper open.
Inside was a legally binding divorce agreement.
Grant wanted the house.
He demanded total control of Mercer Dynamics.
He wanted primary custody of our daughter.
He also demanded nearly half of my personal Whitmore family shares.
I laughed out loud in the empty, echoing hallway.
Then I found a small handwritten note attached to the very last page.
"Sign within three days, and don't make this ugly."
My phone immediately rang.
It was Grant.
I answered the call on the first ring.
"You completely humiliated me," he snarled through the receiver.
"Where did the shares come from, Grant?"
"You will understand everything tomorrow."
"Did you forge my signature?"
Heavy silence filled the line.
That brief, suffocating silence told me everything I needed to know.
Then his voice changed into something cold and mechanical.
"You have lived behind your father’s money your entire life."
"And you have lived behind mine for fifteen years," I shot back.
The heavy wooden front door slammed loudly downstairs.
Thirty seconds later, Grant stormed into our master bedroom.
His expensive tuxedo jacket was gone.
His silk tie hung loosely around his collar.
"You are going to call my mother right now," he ordered.
"And you are going to apologize to her."
"For what?"
"For embarrassing her only son in front of the entire city."
I laughed right in his furious face.
That was the exact moment he forcefully shoved me.
My shoulder struck the heavy oak dresser, sending a spike of pain through my body.
I fell hard onto the polished hardwood floor.
He froze in place, his eyes wide.
For one brief, stupid moment, I actually thought he would reach down to help me up.
Instead, he simply pointed a trembling finger at the divorce agreement on the bed.
"You have three days, Evelyn."
Then he turned around and walked out of the room without looking back.
I remained perfectly still on the cold floor.
My shaking hand moved slowly toward my lower abdomen.
Inside my purse was a confidential laboratory report from that very afternoon.
I was seven weeks pregnant.
Grant had absolutely no idea.
I had planned to tell him the happy news immediately after the gala.
Instead, I pulled out my phone and dialed another man.
"Daniel?"
Daniel Price had been my father's most trusted attorney for twenty-two years.
"Evelyn, it is past midnight."
"I need a ruthless divorce lawyer right now."
A long, heavy pause followed my demand.
"What exactly happened tonight?"
"I think Grant forged my signature, stole company assets, and gave his pregnant mistress sixty-three million shares."
Another tense pause stretched between us on the line.
"Is there anything else?"
I looked down at my designer purse containing the pregnancy report.
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"I want to destroy him legally."
Daniel sighed heavily into the receiver.
"We have a much bigger problem, Evelyn."
"What do you mean by that?"
"The sixty-three million shares weren't forged from your personal account."
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My blood ran completely cold as I waited for him to finish.
"They were legally transferred from Sophie's irrevocable trust fund," Daniel whispered.
