Chapter 4 - Dinner with the EnemyRichard Reed invited me to dinner three days later.
By one o’clock, there were seven.
Reporters crowded the sidewalk outside my house.
Microphones.
Cameras.
Strangers calling my name.
“Claire! Did you know Nathan Reed was a billionaire?”
“Claire! Did he change his will after marrying you?”
“Claire! How long were you dating before the wedding?”
“Mrs. Reed, did you provide medical care while pursuing a romantic relationship?”
That last one made my blood boil.
I had never been Nathan’s nurse.
I had been a volunteer companion through an independent hospice support organization. I cleaned dishes, bought groceries, sat with him, and drove him to appointments when necessary.
But facts were already becoming optional.
By evening, my photograph was everywhere.
One outlet used a picture of me leaving a discount grocery store.
Another found my divorce filing.
Someone published the amount remaining on my mortgage.
They discovered that Evan had received financial aid for college.
They found an old parking ticket.
The internet turned me into whatever people wanted me to be.
A predator.
A saint.
A manipulator.
A grieving widow.
A criminal genius.
A woman who had somehow designed a multi-billion-dollar scheme while clipping coupons and working thirty hours a week as a receptionist at a dental office.
Thomas moved us into a hotel under another name.
Security stayed outside our rooms.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“I wish I were.”
“Is Richard dangerous?”
Thomas considered that.
“Financially? Absolutely.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“I don’t know.”
Which was not reassuring.
The following morning, I watched Nathan’s recording.
Thomas had arranged a secure laptop.
Evan asked if I wanted him to stay.
I shook my head.
“This part is mine.”
He squeezed my shoulder and left.
I inserted the drive.
Nathan appeared on the screen.
He was sitting in the same living room chair I had pushed him around in.
But the video had been recorded before our wedding.
He looked tired.
Still, when he spoke my name, I started crying immediately.
“Hi, Claire.”
I covered my mouth.
“If you’re watching this, then I’m gone, which is extremely inconvenient because I would much rather explain all of this myself.”
I laughed through my tears.
That sounded exactly like him.
“There are things I should have told you. I wanted to. Many times.”
He looked away.
“My money ruined almost every relationship I ever had.”
Then Nathan told me his story.
His father, James Reed, had created Reed Freight Systems with four trucks in 1978.
By the time Nathan was twenty, the company operated in twelve states.
Nathan studied engineering, then finance, returned home, and transformed the business into a national logistics and infrastructure empire.
Ports.
Rail systems.
Warehouses.
Renewable-energy projects.
Medical supply chains.
Thousands of employees.
His father died when Nathan was thirty-two.
That was when Richard entered the picture.
Half brother.
Same father.
Different mothers.
Richard had grown up wealthy and angry.
Nathan had grown up working in warehouses during summers.
Richard believed the company belonged equally to them.
James disagreed.
Nathan inherited controlling shares.
Richard inherited enough money to never need employment.
He wanted power anyway.
“For fifteen years,” Nathan said, “Richard and I fought.”
Board votes.
Lawsuits.
Rumors.
Takeover attempts.
Then Nathan became sick.
At first, only a handful of people knew.
He stepped away publicly, sold the mansion, dismissed most of the personal staff, and moved quietly to Virginia.
“Part of me wanted privacy,” he said.
“Part of me wanted to discover whether I still existed when nobody knew the number attached to my name.”
Then he met me.
His face softened.
“You brought terrible soup the first day.”
I laughed again.
“It was canned.”
“It was terrible.”
He smiled.
“And I ate all of it.”
He described our conversations.
The night I fixed his leaking sink.
The afternoon Evan brought over a chessboard.
The day I found him crying after an appointment and pretended not to notice until he was ready to talk.
“I kept waiting for the right moment to tell you.”
His smile disappeared.
“Then the doctors told me there wasn’t much time.”
He took a long breath.
“When I asked you to marry me, I knew two things. First, I loved you.”
My tears fell harder.
“Second, I knew Richard would eventually learn about you.”
Nathan leaned closer to the camera.
“I did not marry you to protect my fortune.”
He paused.
“I changed my estate because I finally met someone I trusted more than the people who spent decades trying to own me.”
I wiped my face.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“There is one thing I need you to understand about Reed Industries.”
He looked frightened.
Not for himself.
For someone else.
“Richard cannot control it.”
My body went still.
“There is an internal project called Horizon. Thomas knows the legal structure, but he does not know everything. Almost nobody does.”
Nathan swallowed.
“If Richard gains control before Horizon is completed, seventeen thousand employees could lose their pensions.”
I stared at the screen.
“He will tell you the company is unstable. He will offer you money. He may threaten you. He may try to destroy your reputation.”
Nathan’s voice weakened.
“But do not sell your voting shares until you understand Horizon.”
He closed his eyes for several seconds.
When he opened them, there were tears in them.
“I hate that I’m asking this of you.”
He breathed slowly.
“You didn’t ask for my money. You didn’t ask for my company. You certainly didn’t ask for my family.”
A faint smile.
“But you once told me that doing the right thing doesn’t become wrong because it is inconvenient.”
I remembered saying it.
Evan had been complaining about returning a wallet he found in a parking lot.
Nathan had laughed.
Apparently, he remembered every word.
The recording ended with him whispering:
“You gave me sixty-seven days as your husband.”
Then he smiled.
“I’m asking you for ninety more as my partner.”
The screen went black.
I sat there for several minutes.
Then someone knocked.
Thomas entered.
His expression told me immediately something had happened.
“What now?”
“Richard Reed is downstairs.”
I stood.
“At the hotel?”
“Yes.”
“How did he find us?”
“We’re investigating that.”
“What does he want?”
Thomas looked toward the closed door.
“He says he wants to make peace.”
I almost laughed.
Instead, I remembered Nathan’s recording.
He will offer you money.
“How much?” I asked.
Thomas frowned.
“How much what?”
“How much is he offering?”
Thomas’s face told me I had guessed correctly.
“Two hundred million dollars.”
“For?”
“Your controlling voting shares.”
I wiped the last tears from my cheeks.
Nathan had been dead four days.
His brother already wanted to buy his life’s work from his widow.
“Tell him no.”
Thomas studied me.
“You don’t want to hear the proposal?”
“No.”
“Claire, two hundred million dollars is—”
“I know.”
I looked at the black laptop screen.
“But my husband asked me for ninety days.”
Thomas slowly nodded.
Then he did something unexpected.
He smiled.
“Richard is going to hate you.”
“Good.”
May you like
I picked up Nathan’s silver ring from the table and slid it onto my finger.
“Maybe we finally have something in common.”
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