“Because it’s the last one you’ll ever have with us.”
He laughed softly, as though I was simply overwhelmed after childbirth.
As though I’d call him back before dinner.
Minutes later, he stepped into the hallway to answer his phone.
“I told you, Camille… I’m handling it.”
A pause.
“My parents are on their way.”
My stomach sank.
His parents had never accepted me.
Now I understood why.
By sunrise, my sister, Olivia, had driven four hours to be with me.
While she rocked Marlo to sleep, I finally returned weeks of missed calls from my late Uncle Elliott’s attorney.
Within minutes, a courier delivered a thick folder to my hospital room.
Across the front were the words:
**CONFIDENTIAL PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT — CALLAWAY HOLDINGS**
As I stared at the documents, the hospital door slowly opened, and Weston walked back in asking to see his daughter.
He froze the instant his eyes landed on the folder beside my bed.
Weston stopped so abruptly that the hospital door nearly swung back into him.
His face drained of color.
“Where did you get that?”
I rested one hand over Marlo’s tiny back.
“Good morning to you too.”
His eyes never left the folder.
“Sable, I asked you a question.”
“And yesterday I asked you to hold your daughter.”
That silenced him.
Olivia stood beside the bassinet, watching him with an expression sharp enough to cut glass.
Weston walked closer.
“Those documents belonged to Elliott.”
“They did.”
My uncle Elliott Mercer had died six weeks earlier after a sudden heart attack.
He had never married, never had children, and had spent most of his life quietly investing in businesses nobody realized he had helped build.
Including Callaway Holdings.
I hadn’t known the extent of it.
Apparently, neither had Weston.
I opened the folder.
The first page carried Uncle Elliott’s signature.
The second carried Weston’s father’s.
And the third explained why my husband suddenly looked terrified.
Twenty-nine years earlier, when Callaway Holdings had nearly collapsed, Elliott had provided the capital that saved it.
In exchange, he received thirty-seven percent of the company’s voting shares and one permanent board appointment.
He had remained a silent partner.
Upon his death, those rights transferred to his designated beneficiary.
Me.
Weston reached for the folder.
I pulled it away.
“Don’t.”
“Sable, you don’t understand what you’re reading.”
A man’s voice came from the doorway.
“She understands perfectly.”
Weston turned.
Arthur Keene, my uncle’s attorney, entered carrying a briefcase.
Behind him stood a woman in a navy suit whom he introduced as Margaret Sloan, counsel for Mercer Capital.
