“What do you want?”
“The company.”
“I’d rather burn it.”
“You won’t.”
“Why not?”
Claire looked at Daniel, then back at me.
“Because you love it too much. And because the company is the only thing your father ever gave you that meant anything.”
Her voice softened with a kind of deliberate cruelty.
“Don’t worry, Emily. I won’t destroy it. I’ll restore its true name. The one my father fought for.”
A strange calm settled over me.
“You have this all planned.”
“For twenty years.”
“Then why wait until now?”
For the first time, her smile flickered.
“Because I needed Daniel to get inside. And the only way to get inside was to be the devoted husband of the heiress.”
Daniel finally spoke.
“It was never about you and me.”
“Shut up,” I said.
He flinched.
I looked at Claire.
“You used my grandmother’s ring. And you used my family’s name.”
“I used what was mine.”
“It was never yours.”
Claire’s eyes hardened.
“It was mine more than it was yours.”
She stood.
