The Ticket Was Never for His Mistress Chapter 02

The Ticket Was Never for His Mistress Chapter 02

Five days later, I walked into Mercer Dynamics wearing the navy suit I used to wear before I became “Grant’s wife.”

The executive floor went silent.

There were balloons in the conference room. Gold ones. And a cake shaped like a designer handbag.

Brooke stood at the head of the table in a red wrap dress, handing out cupcakes to the senior team.

“Mrs. Mercer!” She smiled like a girl who’d never been told no. “It’s my birthday! Grant’s taking everyone to Nobu tonight. On the company card.” She held out a cupcake. “You should come.”

I looked at the cupcake.

Then at the necklace at her throat. A Cartier love pendant. Eighty thousand dollars.

I’d seen that exact charge on the corporate statement. Labeled “client gift.”

“It’s your birthday?” I asked.

“Yep! Twenty-four.”

“Funny.” I set my bag on the table. “Your HR file says March.”

Someone choked on frosting.

Brooke’s smile cracked. “I—I celebrate it differently—”

“Today is my birthday, Brooke.” My voice was calm. Loud enough for twelve executives to hear. “Did Grant tell you that? Or did you pick the date yourself?”

Her face went scarlet. “How dare you imply something! There’s nothing between me and Grant! He mentors me! He sees my potential!”

“His potential,” I corrected. “At two in the morning. When you called him because your cramps were ‘unbearable’ and he drove across the city to make you tea.”

Gasps.

“You—you’re spying on me?”

“You posted it on your private story. With a heart.”

The door opened.

Grant walked in, and the room shifted toward him like plants to sunlight.

He saw Brooke’s trembling lip. Then me. That familiar crease formed between his brows.

“Hazel.” He put a hand on my shoulder. Warm. Fake. “Brooke closed the Hendricks account. Twelve percent over target. This is a team celebration.”

He leaned in, whispering. “She leaves in three weeks. Just let her have this. For me.”

For me.

I brushed his hand off.

“Walter,” I said to the CFO, a silver-haired man who’d been with us since the garage. “Last year you closed the Tokyo deal. Revenue doubled. What was your bonus?”

Walter cleared his throat. “A handshake. And a fruit basket.”

“Brooke closed a client that Grant pre-negotiated for her,” I said. “She got an eighty-thousand-dollar necklace. Billed to the company.”

I turned to my husband. “Explain that to the shareholders, Grant.”

His jaw locked. He had no answer.

I stepped closer to Brooke. Close enough to smell her sugary perfume. The same perfume that had been on his collar for months.

“Sweetheart,” I said softly, “when a rich man buys you diamonds with money that isn’t his, he’s not showing you your worth. He’s showing you your price.”

I tapped the pendant with one finger.

“Keep it. Consider it my birthday gift to you.”

I turned toward the door.

“Grant—” Brooke whimpered.

Thud.

She’d collapsed. Dramatically. Right onto the carpet, one arm draped over her forehead like a Victorian heroine.

“Call a doctor!” Grant roared. He scooped her up, and when he looked at me, there was no guilt left in his face.

Only rage.

“Are you happy now?” he hissed. “If anything happens to her, Hazel, I swear to God—”

“You’ll what?”

The room froze.

“Say it, Grant. In front of your board. Say what you’ll do to your wife for the girl who faked her birthday.”

His arm tightened around Brooke. A vein pulsed in his temple.

He said nothing.

He carried her out. At the door, he stopped, not looking back.

“Go home, Hazel. I’ll be at the city apartment.”

Not “happy birthday.”

Just “go home.” Like I was a dog who’d barked at a guest.

Walter caught me at the elevator. “Mrs. Mercer. You pushed too hard. Men like Grant… sometimes they wander, but they come back.”

“Walter. The night before the IPO, when Grant collapsed from exhaustion. Who sat in the ER with him for nineteen hours? Who rewrote his investor deck from the hospital chair?”

He looked down. “You did.”

“And what did he say when he woke up?”

Walter’s voice was quiet. “‘Without Hazel, there is no Mercer Dynamics.'”

“He meant it then,” I said. “He’s forgotten it now.”

The elevator opened.

“From today, every expense over fifty thousand dollars comes to my desk. Every one.”

The doors closed.

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

A photo. Grant asleep on a white couch, his tie loosened, Brooke’s pink blanket over his chest.

Caption: “He says your house feels like an office. Happy birthday, Mrs. Mercer.”

I stared at it until my eyes burned.

Then I saved it to a folder.

Evidence #14.