Chapter 2: The Woman at the Back of the Room
⬇️ **PART 2**
Security reached the ballroom doors before Derek could move.
He turned to me, his voice dropping to something between a whisper and a threat.
"You have no idea what you've just done."
"I think I do," I said.
Vanessa was still touching the earrings.
Her fingers wouldn't stop moving, like she was trying to decide whether to take them off before anyone asked her to.
Malcolm stepped beside me and spoke quietly to the general counsel.
A second later, the counsel approached Vanessa directly.
"Ms.
Price.
The board will need those returned tonight."
She looked at Derek.
Derek looked away.
That was the moment she understood he wasn't going to protect her.
"They were a gift," she said.
"They were company funds," the counsel replied.
"We have the transfer records."
Her face changed.
The confidence she'd worn all evening — the same confidence she'd used to smile at me across the ballroom — collapsed in about three seconds.
But it was what happened next that silenced the entire room.
A woman near the back stood up.
I didn't recognize her at first.
Then Derek did.
His face went a color I had never seen before.
"Who is she?" I asked Malcolm quietly.
He looked at me carefully.
"That," he said, "is something you need to read for yourself."
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What Derek was hiding goes far deeper than the money or the earrings.
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