Chapter 2 - THE VIDEO MY DAUGHTER WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO SEE
“Dad, why did you tell that lady I was the reason you couldn't leave Mom?”
Grace's small voice cut through the ballroom.
Derek stopped smiling.
So did the woman in red.
Three hundred people had been pretending not to watch my husband arrive at our charity gala with his mistress. Now half of them were watching our nine-year-old daughter stand in front of him with a phone clutched in both hands.
“Grace,” Derek said carefully. “Sweetheart, what are you talking about?”
She looked at the woman beside him.
“Are you Sienna?”
The woman's expression changed.
“Yes,” she answered softly.
Grace nodded as though she had just confirmed something important.
“Dad said you don't like kids.”
“Grace.”
Derek's voice sharpened.
I started toward them.
My daughter raised her phone.
“Then why did you tell her I was a problem?”
Derek reached for the device.
Grace stepped back.
“Don't take it.”
Something about those three words stopped him.
For eleven years, Derek Sterling had been a man who could make a room obey him simply by lowering his voice.
He had built Sterling Meridian from a small logistics company into a business valued at nearly a billion dollars. Investors admired him. Employees feared disappointing him. Reporters called him disciplined, visionary, and generous.
But standing before his daughter, he looked like a man who had forgotten his lines.
I reached Grace and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Come with me, sweetheart.”
“No, Mom. He has to answer.”
Her eyes were shining now.
I wanted to pick her up and carry her somewhere safe.
But I also knew that pretending nothing had happened would teach her a terrible lesson.
“Derek,” I said quietly, “answer your daughter.”
He glanced at the nearby guests.
“Victoria, this is neither the time nor the place.”
“You chose the time and place when you walked in with her.”
Sienna's hand fell away from his arm.
Derek noticed.
His jaw tightened.
“Let's not make a scene.”
I looked around the ballroom.
“I'm not the one who brought a scene through the front door.”
A few feet away, Claudia Mercer stood beside the silent jazz quartet, watching us with concern.
Derek leaned down toward Grace.
“Whatever you think you heard, grown-up relationships are complicated.”
Grace shook her head.
“You said you wished you didn't have to go home.”
He went very still.
“How did you hear that?”
She stared at her phone.
“Your video.”
My stomach dropped.
“What video, honey?”
Grace opened the screen.
I saw Derek's face in a small preview window.
Behind him was the familiar bookshelf in his office at Sterling Meridian.
He was speaking to someone off camera.
Grace touched the play button.
Derek's recorded voice came through clearly.
“Once the foundation money is transferred, I won't have to pretend anymore. Victoria won't have a choice.”
I felt my entire body turn cold.
The recording continued.
A woman's voice said, “And Grace?”
Derek answered, “She'll adjust. Kids always do.”
Grace stopped the video.
The silence afterward seemed louder than the music had been.
Derek stared at the phone.
“That recording is private.”
I almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because of all the things he could have said, he had chosen that.
“Private?” I repeated.
“Victoria, you don't understand the context.”
“Then explain it.”
He looked toward Sienna.
She was no longer smiling.
“You told me you were already separated,” she whispered.
Derek didn't answer.
Her expression hardened.
“You said Victoria knew.”
I looked at her.
For the first time that evening, I saw something other than the woman who had been sleeping with my husband.
I saw someone realizing she had been lied to.
That didn't excuse what she had done.
But it changed what I thought I understood.
“Mom,” Grace whispered.
I turned immediately.
“Did I do something bad?”
My heart broke all over again.
I knelt in front of her.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Dad looks mad.”
“That's because Dad has some things he needs to explain. None of this is your responsibility.”
She swallowed.
“Are we going home?”
“Yes.”
Derek straightened.
“Victoria, you are not taking her away from me.”
I looked up.
“You can call her tomorrow.”
“She's my daughter.”
“And she just asked you a question you refused to answer.”
His face reddened.
“Don't turn her against me.”
I rose slowly.
“You're doing that without my help.”
Then I took Grace's hand and walked toward the ballroom exit.
I could feel hundreds of eyes following us.
I didn't turn around.
Not until Derek called my name.
“Victoria.”
I stopped.
He was standing beside the main table.
His expression had changed.
No longer embarrassed.
Afraid.
“Where did you get that recording?”
I looked at Grace.
She was staring at the carpet.
“I found it,” she said.
“Where?”
“On your old tablet.”
Derek took one step toward us.
“Which tablet?”
Grace looked up.
“The one you gave me when you bought the new one.”
I remembered it.
A black tablet Derek had used for business before replacing it in September.
Grace had been using it to play games and watch drawing tutorials.
Apparently, it still contained some of his files.
“Grace,” Derek said, “did you send that video to anybody?”
My daughter's fingers tightened around mine.
“No.”
He exhaled.
Then she added, “But I showed Grandpa.”
Derek stopped breathing.
I watched the color drain from his face.
His father, Thomas Sterling, had died three years earlier.
There was only one grandfather Grace could mean.
My father.
Arthur Bennett.
A retired forensic accountant who had spent thirty-five years investigating financial fraud.
And who had barely spoken to Derek since Sterling Meridian's first major acquisition.
Derek looked directly at me.
“When did she show Arthur?”
I had no idea.
Grace answered before I could.
“Yesterday.”
Derek's gaze moved toward the ballroom doors.
For one terrible second, I thought he might try to take the phone.
Instead, he pulled out his own and began typing.
Sienna reached for his sleeve.
“Derek, what's going on?”
He shook her off.
“Not now.”
I guided Grace toward the elevators.
Only when the doors closed did I allow myself to breathe.
My daughter leaned against me.
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Grandpa said I wasn't supposed to tell Dad about the other video.”
My fingers went numb.
“What other video?”
Grace looked up at me.
“The one where Dad says he knows what happened to the missing money.”
The elevator descended.
I stared at my daughter.
Then she whispered something that made the sealed envelope in my purse suddenly feel much heavier.
“Mom, Grandpa said if Dad finds out what we know, he might try to take everything away from us.”
May you like
And just before the elevator reached the lobby, Grace added:
“He already tried to take your name off the house.”
Related Stories
