The Billionaire He Threw Away Chapter 04

The Billionaire He Threw Away Chapter 04

The next morning, I woke to Vanessa standing over me.

“Elise,” she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “I need you to pick up my prenatal vitamins from the pharmacy on Lexington. Liam

forgot, and I really can’t walk that far in my condition.”

She placed a hand on her belly-a gesture I’d seen her perform at least a dozen times in three days. Always when Liam was watching. Always

perfectly timed.

I sat up on the bare couch frame, my back aching, and looked at her.

In my old life-the life before that email-I would have said yes. I would have grabbed my coat and walked twenty blocks in the cold because

saying no felt selfish, because keeping the peace was all I knew how to do.

“No,” I said.

Vanessa blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I said no. I’m not your errand girl.”

Her face tightened. The sweetness evaporated so fast it was almost impressive. She turned toward the bedroom. “Liam!”

He appeared in seconds, as if he’d been standing just behind the door, waiting. “What happened?”

“I just asked Elise for a tiny favor, and she snapped at me.” Vanessa’s voice wobbled. Her eyes glistened. “I know I’m an inconvenience. I know she

hates me being here. But I’m carrying your baby, Liam. I just need a little help.”

The performance was flawless.

Liam’s jaw hardened. He looked at me the way you’d look at a stain on a white shirt.

“Would it kill you to be decent?” he said. “She’s pregnant, Elise. She can’t do everything herself.”

“She can’t walk six blocks to a pharmacy,” I said, “but she can rearrange my entire apartment?”

Because she had. In three days, Vanessa had reorganized the kitchen, moved the furniture, replaced my plants with her candles, and hung her

clothes in the closet-pushing mine into a garbage bag that now sat by the front door, like it was waiting to be taken out with the trash.

Liam’s expression didn’t waver. “She’s nesting. It’s a pregnancy thing. Don’t make this into a fight.”

I stared at him. At the man who used to bring me soup when I had a cold. Who once drove forty minutes in a snowstorm to bring me my forgotten lunch. Who had held my face in his hands on our wedding night and whispered, I will always choose you

“You’re right,” I said calmly. “I won’t make this into a fight.”

I picked up my coat-the one I’d finally retrieved from under Vanessa’s pile of shopping bags-and walked out.

I didn’t go to the pharmacy.

I went to Wentworth Industries.

The headquarters occupied the top fifteen floors of a glass tower on Park Avenue. When I stepped out of the elevator on the fiftieth floor, the

receptionist looked at me like I’d wandered in from the wrong building.

I was wearing a $30 coat from Target, jeans with a hole in the knee, and sneakers that had seen better years.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her smile polite but skeptical.

“My name is Elise Wentworth,” I said. “I’m here to see the board.”

Three seconds of silence.

Then Gerald appeared behind her, as if conjured. “Ms. Wentworth. They’re ready for you.”

The boardroom was glass-walled, sunlit, enormous. Twelve people sat around a mahogany table. Most were men over fifty. A few were younger-

sharp-suited, sharp-eyed.

They all turned to look at me.

I could see it on their faces. The confusion. The barely concealed judgment. *This was the heir? This woman in jeans and a Target coat?

Gerald introduced me. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Elise Aldridge Wentworth. Margaret’s granddaughter. Majority shareholder. The new owner

of Wentworth Industries.”

Silence.

Then one man near the head of the table-silver-haired, square-jawed, radiating the kind of authority that comes from decades of unchecked

power-leaned forward.

“With all due respect,” he said, “we’ve been running this company successfully for three years without interference. Are we to understand that you

intend to take an active role?”

His name was Richard Hale. Interim CEO. And he clearly viewed me as a problem.

I looked at him. Then I looked at every single person at that table.

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

Gerald handed me a folder. Inside was a document I’d signed that morning-a resolution granting me full executive authority over all Wentworth

subsidiaries.

Including the investment arm.

Including the thirty percent stake in Prism Digital.

Including my husband’s entire future.

I set the folder on the table.

“Let’s begin,” I said.