“You are Marissa,” she said softly. “We need to talk.”
Before I could respond, Brandon appeared behind her, his face drained of color as if he had walked into something he did not understand.
Katherine turned slightly and said, calmly and clearly, “She is the majority partner.”
Brandon grabbed the doorframe, his confidence collapsing in on itself.
Because what he had never bothered to learn was that my grandfather had been an early backer of Northstar Dynamics, the same firm Katherine now led. His shares, quietly held for decades, had transferred to me. With my inheritance, I now controlled nearly half the company.
Which meant Brandon had just discarded the woman who held the key to his entire professional future.
Katherine pulled a chair closer to my bed and sat. “I did not know the truth about you,” she said. “He told me you abandoned him. He said you were unstable. He said the marriage ended months ago.”
I laughed, though there was no humor in it. “I was pregnant and begging him to stay.”
Her jaw tightened. “I figured that out too late.”
She opened a folder and spread documents across the tray table. Financial statements. Ownership transfers. Legal notices.