“You volunteered me.”
“That is not fair.”
“No.”
She nodded again.
“It isn’t.”
Her voice remained steady.
“Neither was disappearing from the company history afterward.”
Vanessa looked between them.
“Forty-two percent?”
Ryan said quickly:
“Founder shares.”
Claire almost smiled.
As though founder shares were decorative.
Vanessa stared at him.
“You told me she had been bought out.”
Claire looked at Ryan.
That was new.
“What?”
Ryan’s face changed.
Vanessa continued:
“You said the divorce settlement included her remaining interest.”
“Vanessa.”
“No.”
She stepped away from him.
“You said she signed an exit.”
Claire’s pulse changed.
“What exit?”
Ryan looked at the floor for half a second.
That was enough.
Claire forgot the ring.
Forgot the flowers.
Forgot the crowd.
“What did you tell her I signed?”
He looked up.
“This is not about the company.”
“It is now.”
“Claire.”
“What did I sign?”
Ryan stared at her.
Vanessa whispered:
“He said you signed the founder separation documents in March.”
Claire went cold.
March.
She had signed something in March.
A packet Ryan’s assistant sent to the house during her mother’s final hospitalization.
She remembered sitting beside her mother’s bed at three in the morning with a laptop open.
Ryan called.
He said Meridian needed routine founder consents for the acquisition process.
Claire read some.
Not all.
Twenty-eight pages.
Her mother had been vomiting from medication.
Sophie was sleeping in a chair.
Ryan said:
“It’s standard. Legal already reviewed it.”
Claire signed where the electronic tabs appeared.
Three weeks later her mother died.
She had not thought about the documents again.
“What exactly did the March packet do?”
Ryan did not answer.
Claire looked toward the nearest table.
A black presentation folder lay beside several pens.
She picked it up.
“Give me a copy.”
“Of what?”
“The acquisition materials.”
Ryan laughed nervously.
“No.”
Claire stared.
“No?”
“Those are confidential.”
She almost admired the absurdity.
“I’m a forty-two-percent shareholder.”
“Nonexecutive.”
“Shareholder.”
“Claire.”
Vanessa stepped toward the stage.
“There’s a transaction binder.”
Ryan turned sharply.
“Vanessa.”
She looked at him.
“I’m done being the only woman here who doesn’t know what’s happening.”
She reached beneath the cocktail table and lifted a thick black binder.
Ryan moved.
Claire took it first.
The front read:
PROJECT NORTHSTAR
CONFIDENTIAL
MERIDIAN DYNAMICS / APEX GLOBAL TECHNOLOGIES
Claire’s heart accelerated.
Apex.
A public technology conglomerate.
She had heard rumors.
Ryan had denied them.
“Is this the acquisition?”
Nobody answered.
Claire opened the binder.
The first pages contained transaction summaries.
Purchase price.
$486 million.