Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN ON MY SHIRT
I did not confront Andrew.
That was the first intelligent thing I had done in months.
Anger wanted me to drive to his Gold Coast townhouse, drag him into the street and make him tell me exactly what he had put inside Claire’s vitamins.
But anger had already cost me my wife.
I was done letting it make decisions.
“Bianca first,” I told Michael.
He studied me across the nursery.
“You sure?”
“No.”
It was the truth.
“But Andrew thinks I know nothing. I want to keep it that way.”
Bianca Vale lived in a twenty-ninth-floor condominium overlooking Lake Michigan.
I knew because I had paid for it.
Not directly.
Bianca had once been a consultant negotiating hospitality contracts for one of my restaurants. She was thirty-two, beautiful, confident and very good at making attention feel like admiration rather than temptation.
The affair did not begin with a hotel room.
That would have been easier to hate.
It began with lunch.
Then drinks after meetings.
Then messages I deleted.
Then one night when Claire was home vomiting from morning sickness and I sat beside another woman in the private lounge of one of my own hotels while Bianca placed a hand on my knee.
I could blame Andrew for introducing her to several of our projects.
I could blame stress.
I could blame the parts of my marriage that had become difficult.
All of that would have been cowardice.
Andrew might have put Bianca in front of me.
I was the one who opened the door.
At 10:12 the next morning, I walked into her condo without knocking.
Bianca was standing in the kitchen wearing silk pajama pants and one of my shirts.
Of course she was.
She froze when she saw me.
“Daniel.”
I closed the door behind Michael.
Bianca’s gaze moved between us.
“What is this?”
“Take off my shirt.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
“The shirt belongs to me.”
“So?”
“I’m taking back everything that belongs to me.”
She stared at me.
Then slowly smiled.
“Claire finally leave you?”
Michael remained expressionless.
I didn’t.
My hand hit the marble counter so hard a wineglass jumped.
“Do not say her name like you know her.”
Bianca’s smile disappeared.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“The man everyone warned me about.”
“You never seemed afraid before.”
“I wasn’t.”
That answer bothered me.
I stepped closer.
“How long have you known Andrew?”
Silence.
Only for a second.
But it was enough.
Bianca folded her arms.
“I know your whole family.”
“Wrong answer.”
She looked toward Michael.
“Is this an interrogation?”
“No,” I said. “Interrogations happen downstairs.”
The color drained from her face.
I hated myself slightly for enjoying that.
Not because she didn’t deserve fear.
Because I recognized how easily I could become the man Claire had run from.
So I stepped back.
“Tell me the truth, Bianca.”
“About what?”
“Andrew.”
She walked toward the bar.
I noticed her hand shaking when she poured water.
“I met him before I met you.”
“How long?”
“Two years.”
Michael swore under his breath.
I said nothing.
Bianca took a drink.
“Andrew introduced me to Carter Hospitality.”
“He told me you came through New York.”
“I did. After he recommended me.”
“Why?”
She looked at me over the glass.
“You know why.”
I walked toward her.
“Say it.”
“He wanted me close to you.”
The room seemed suddenly too quiet.
“How close?”
“At first? Close enough to learn things.”
“Financial?”
“Personal.”
“What things?”
“Your schedule. Your marriage. Who you trusted. Whether you planned to have children.”
I felt something cold move through my chest.
“Claire was already pregnant when you and I—”
“I know.”
I grabbed the edge of the bar.
“Did Andrew tell you to sleep with me?”
“No.”
I looked up sharply.
Bianca laughed without humor.
“You want that to be true, don’t you?”
I said nothing.
“It would help,” she continued. “If you could say your evil brother sent a woman to seduce you, perhaps you could make yourself the victim too.”
Michael looked away.
Bianca walked closer.
“He told me to get near you. I decided how near.”
“And I let you.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt because it deserved to.
She took off the shirt.
Underneath she wore a black camisole.
She threw the shirt at my chest.
“You weren’t drugged, Daniel. You weren’t threatened. You weren’t lonely enough to lose control. You wanted me.”
“I know.”
For the first time, Bianca looked surprised.
I put the shirt on the chair.
“Now tell me why Andrew wanted information about my child.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“What child?”
I watched her face carefully.
“My daughter.”
Something flickered there.
Fear.
Real fear.
“When is Claire due?”
“Why?”
“Daniel.”
“When?”
“March.”
Bianca set down her glass.
“You need to find your wife.”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
“No. You need to find her now.”
Michael stepped forward.
“What do you know?”
Bianca turned away.
“Andrew told me six months ago that Carter Holdings was going to change.”
“How?”
“He said there was an old family document. Something his father had hidden from you.”
“The succession trust.”
Her eyes snapped toward mine.
“You found it.”
“Claire did.”
Bianca closed her eyes.
“Then she knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That Andrew loses everything when the baby is born.”
I said nothing.
She shook her head.
“I thought he meant control. Money. I didn’t understand he was planning—”
“Planning what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bianca.”
“I don’t!”
Her voice broke.
“I knew he wanted Claire frightened. He told me if your marriage collapsed, she would leave Chicago, and once she was away from your security he could pressure her into signing something.”
“What?”
“A waiver.”
“For the trust?”
“I think so.”
Michael and I exchanged a look.
“Did you help him?”
Bianca’s face hardened.
“I slept with you.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No. It’s a confession to what you did to my marriage. I’m asking what you did to my wife.”
She flinched.
Then whispered, “I gave him your penthouse security codes.”
The world narrowed.
Michael moved so fast Bianca stepped backward.
“When?” he demanded.
“Months ago.”
“You had Daniel’s private residence codes?”
“He gave them to me.”
Michael looked at me.
I wanted the floor to open.
Bianca continued quickly.
“I used them twice when Daniel told me to meet him there while Claire was visiting her sister.”
The disgust on Michael’s face was worse than a punch.
I had brought Bianca into the home Claire believed was sacred.
No wonder she said she would be safer elsewhere.
“Andrew asked for them,” Bianca continued. “He said he wanted to surprise Daniel for his birthday. I thought nothing of it.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Her voice softened.
“I expect you to believe I was stupid.”
I stepped toward her.
“Claire became sick after someone entered our bedroom.”
Bianca’s lips parted.
“I didn’t know.”
“Andrew had access because of you.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Because of me.”
She looked at me.
That was the truth neither of us could escape.
I had created the opening.
Andrew had simply used it.
Bianca sat down slowly.
“There’s something else.”
I waited.
“Three weeks before Christmas, Andrew asked me whether Claire had family outside Illinois.”
My pulse changed.
“What did you say?”
“That her sister lived in Evanston. Her mother was dead. Her father was dead.”
“Anything else?”
“I remembered something you told me.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
Bianca looked ashamed.
“You once said Claire spent summers with her aunt near Traverse City when she was young.”
Michigan.
I remembered the conversation.
Bianca and I were in bed.
She had asked why Claire hated boats.
I told her Claire had nearly drowned as a teenager while visiting her aunt on Lake Michigan.
I had given Bianca the location of one of Claire’s childhood safe places while lying naked beside her.
“Address?”
“I didn’t know it.”
“Did Andrew ask?”
“Yes.”
“Did he find it?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael was already on his phone.
I turned toward the window.
Snow covered the lakefront.
Claire had been gone four weeks.
Four weeks in which Andrew might have been searching.
Four weeks in which my pregnant wife had been hiding from a danger I had invited into our home.
Behind me, Bianca whispered, “Daniel.”
I didn’t turn.
“I am sorry.”
“You’re sorry because you’re scared.”
“Yes.”
The honesty stopped me.
She stood.
“I did terrible things because I liked the money and I liked knowing a powerful man wanted me. But Andrew is different. He doesn’t just want power.”
“What does he want?”
“He wants you punished for having it.”
Before I could answer, the front window exploded.
Michael slammed into me.
Glass sprayed across the room.
Bianca screamed.
A second shot punched through the wall where my head had been.
“DOWN!”
Michael drew his weapon.
I dragged Bianca behind the marble island.
Another shot.
Then silence.
Michael crawled toward the broken window.
“Building across the street.”
Bianca was shaking violently.
Blood ran down her cheek from flying glass.
“Andrew,” she whispered.
I looked at her.
“You sure?”
She laughed breathlessly.
“He told me once there are only two kinds of people who know too much.”
“What kinds?”
“Useful people.”
Her eyes filled with terror.
“And dead ones.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Nobody spoke for three seconds.
Then Andrew’s voice came through.
“Danny.”
I stared at Bianca.
My brother continued softly.
“You should really stop opening doors Claire worked so hard to close.”
The line went dead.
Michael looked at me.
Now Andrew knew.
And somewhere beyond Chicago, my seven-months-pregnant wife was hiding with the one person he needed to eliminate before March.
My daughter.
“Get the car,” I said.
May you like
“Where are we going?”
“Michigan.”
