Chapter 2 - The Name Behind the Shares
Nina opened her front door barefoot, carrying a mug of tea and wearing the expression she usually reserved for opposing counsel.
“Please tell me you brought the documents.”
I lifted my tote.
She stepped aside.
Her apartment smelled of lemon soap and the tomato sauce simmering on her stove. Nothing matched. Books occupied two dining chairs. A crooked photograph of her parents hung beside a painting she had bought from a teenager at a street fair.
I nearly cried from the comfort of it.
Nina took the suitcase without commenting on how badly it had been packed.
“Guest room first. Food second. We can discuss the destruction of Grant’s assumptions after you eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“That wasn’t one of the options.”
At her kitchen table, she read the settlement while I ate pasta from a chipped blue bowl.
Halfway through, she stopped.
“Caroline.”
“I saw it.”
“Certain private corporate interests associated with the Holloway marital household.”
“Yes.”
“What did you ever tell him about Avery Ridge?”
“That my father started it. That I worked there. That I retained investments.”
“Did he know the size?”
“He knew enough to ask. He never did.”
Nina removed her reading glasses.
“Then we need to find out whether this language is lazy drafting or a fishing net.”
Before our wedding, independent lawyers had negotiated a detailed prenuptial agreement. My inherited assets and premarital holdings were identified in schedules. So were Grant’s existing interests.
He had received the disclosures.
He had signed an acknowledgment.
But Avery Ridge’s investment in Northstar had grown more complicated over time. There had been new funding rounds, voting agreements, and a succession of entities managed under the same family partnership.
The settlement’s language could create arguments about interests the original agreement already protected.
I wondered who had suggested it.
Nina turned another page.
“This proposed release is far broader than the seventy-five thousand dollars makes it sound.”
“Can he force me out of the house?”
“We’ll review title, occupancy, and the agreement. Leaving tonight doesn’t mean you surrender your rights.”
I looked toward the guest room.
“I don’t think I want the house.”
“You don’t have to decide anything tonight.”
That sentence loosened something inside me.
For weeks, perhaps months, Grant had been making decisions that reached into my life without inviting me into the room.
Now someone was telling me time still belonged to me.
At seven the next morning, I dressed in charcoal trousers and a blue blouse I had once worn to investment committee meetings.
In the mirror, I looked tired.
I also looked familiar.
Evelyn’s office occupied the top floor of an old brick building overlooking the harbor. She had chaired Northstar’s board for three years and had known my father for twenty.
She greeted me without pity.
“I received your message,” she said. “Tell me what concerns the company.”
I appreciated the precision.
I told her about Savannah.
Her expression changed.
“Savannah Price?”
“Yes.”
“Our vice president of strategic accounts?”
I nodded.
Evelyn set down her pen.
Grant had never mentioned Savannah’s job at dinner. He had presented her pregnancy as a private fact, detached from the business that paid both their salaries.
“She reports through the chief commercial officer,” Evelyn said carefully. “But Grant approved her promotion.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Her name appeared in the compensation packet last quarter.”
For years, I had reviewed those packets through Avery Ridge’s representative. I had stepped back from daily operations, not from ownership.
Evelyn folded her hands.
“We’ll need outside counsel. A relationship alone doesn’t establish misconduct. Undisclosed conflicts, compensation decisions, and company spending require examination.”
“That’s what I’m asking for.”
“And you understand you cannot direct the findings.”
“Yes.”
“Or use your voting position to determine an employment outcome before the review.”
“I understand.”
She studied me.
Then she nodded.
“Your father would have approved of that answer.”
I looked away before she could see what it cost me.
As I reached the door, she spoke again.
“Caroline. Grant requested an accelerated board vote yesterday.”
“On what?”
“A transaction called Project Harbor.”
My hand stopped on the handle.
“And?”
“He wants approval before Friday.”
May you like
Yesterday had been our anniversary.
Apparently, I had not been the only thing scheduled for removal.
