“Then explain the numbers.”
Lucas turned toward the board.
“Are we seriously doing this here?”
Nobody answered.
His mother finally lifted her eyes, but whatever Lucas hoped to find there was absent.
Madison attempted to slide away from him.
Lucas caught the movement.
“Don’t.”
She froze.
Hannah noticed the command.
So did everyone else.
Lucas pointed toward the folder.
“This is marital retaliation.
She’s angry because she thinks I’ve been unfaithful.”
Hannah glanced at Madison’s bracelet.
“I don’t think.”
Madison pulled her glove over it.
Lucas’s jaw tightened.
“The bracelet has nothing to do with the company.”
“The foundation paid for it,” Hannah said.
“It was an auction item.”
“Which auction?”
Lucas opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
A board member near the window finally spoke.
“Lucas.”
Just his name.
But the room shifted.
Until that moment, Lucas had been fighting Hannah.
Now he understood he might also be fighting his own board.
He turned on Owen.
“You think buying some debt gives you the right to ambush me?”
Owen’s eyes remained on the papers.
“No.
The agreements give me that right.”
Lucas laughed, but the sound was thin.
“You couldn’t buy this company if you emptied every account you had.”
Owen closed the folder.
“That would have been true six months ago.”
The board members exchanged glances.
Whitmore Meridian had looked powerful from the outside.
Inside, cash had tightened.
Expansion had been financed aggressively.
Lucas had protected the appearance of strength by delaying bad news and pushing obligations forward.
The altered report was not merely embarrassing.
It threatened the structure holding the company upright.
Lucas knew it.
That was why he stopped shouting for a moment.
He leaned toward Hannah instead.
“You planned this.”
“I prepared for you.”
“You brought a creditor to our anniversary dinner?”
“No.
You brought your board, your girlfriend, altered reports, and a bracelet paid for by the foundation.
Owen was already here.”
For the first time that evening, someone at a nearby table failed to hide a laugh.
