Chapter 6: Everything You Just Told Me
The monitoring room was quieter now.
Elaine had gone.
The nurse had stepped out.
Khloe heard the door and didn't turn her head.
"I told you I needed to explain," Marcus said from the doorway.
"Richard told me to let you in." Her voice was even.
"That's the only reason you're standing there."
He came in anyway.
He didn't sit.
He stood near the foot of the bed where she could see him if she chose to, and waited.
She chose to.
She looked at him the way she might look at a contract she was about to sign — carefully, without warmth, reading for the clause that would cost her later.
"Start from the beginning," she said.
"And don't decide what I can handle.
Tell me everything."
He told her.
He stood in that too-bright room and said it all — Isabella, the relationship before Khloe, the ending he thought had held, the messages after the wedding, the threat about the merger, the guest list, the private phone, the six weeks he'd stopped checking it.
He said it without softening the parts that made him look weak.
He said it without asking her to understand.
When he finished, the heartbeat monitor kept its rhythm.
Khloe was quiet for a long time.
"You let her into every room I was in," she said finally.
"Yes."
"You stood next to me and smiled at donors and held my hand at board dinners and the entire time she was there because you put her there."
"Yes."
"To protect a merger."
He didn't answer immediately.
She watched his face.
"To protect everything," he said.
"The company.
You.
The baby.
I told myself I was keeping it contained."
"You were keeping yourself safe," she said.
"From the consequences of a choice you made before you married me.
Don't dress it up."
His jaw tightened.
He didn't argue.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me tonight," he said.
"Good.
Because I can't." She looked at the ceiling.
"What I want to know is the merger.
What does she have?"
"Evidence of a side arrangement made before I took over the Thorne Group.
My father's arrangement, not mine.
She obtained documents through someone inside the company."
"Who?"
"I don't know yet."
"Then find out." She turned her head to look at him directly.
"Because if there's a leak inside your company and Isabella was using it, whoever gave her those documents is still there.
And I want them found before this goes to the DA."
Marcus looked at her.
"You're already thinking about the case," he said.
"I'm thinking about my daughter," she said.
"She is going to be born into a family and a company that are both under threat.
So yes.
I'm thinking about the case." She looked back at the ceiling.
"Go home, Marcus."
"Khloe—"
"Go home.
Let Richard's team work.
Come back in the morning when I've had time to think." A pause.
"And Marcus."
He stopped at the door.
"If there is one more thing you haven't told me," she said, "tell me now.
Because if I find it out from someone else, we are done.
Not complicated.
Not fixable.
Done."
The monitor kept its steady sound.
"There's one more thing," he said.
She closed her eyes.
"The merger arrangement," he said.
"Isabella wasn't the only one who knew about it.
There's a board member who's been aware for two years.
He's been using it to pressure me on votes.
His name is Gerald Fitch."
She opened her eyes.
May you like
"Get out," she said quietly.
"And call your lawyer before you sleep."
