Chapter 1 - The Cage
My husband locked me in a cage in front of forty guests and told them I was having another episode.
That was the moment my marriage ended.
The summer garden party at Whitmore House had been designed to look effortless: white roses, string quartet, champagne towers, and men in linen jackets discussing money as if money had never frightened them.
I was still wearing the pale blue dress Daniel had chosen for me when he shoved me through the little iron door of the antique garden aviary beside the conservatory.
"You need to calm down," he said, smiling for the people watching.
"Daniel, open this door."
He turned the brass key.
Click.
A few guests laughed nervously because they thought it was a joke.
It wasn't.
Ten minutes earlier, I had asked Daniel why twelve million dollars had moved out of Whitmore Infrastructure through three vendors that shared the same mailing address.
He had squeezed my wrist and whispered, "Not here."
I told him we were talking now.
So he dragged me away from the terrace, called me unstable, and locked me inside the decorative cage my grandmother once used for peacocks.
Then he walked back to the party.
I could hear him telling people, "Mara's had a difficult year. Please don't make this worse for her."
My face burned hotter than the August air.
I stopped shouting.
That was when I heard my father's voice.
"Where is my daughter?"
Elliot Whitmore came around the hedge with two board members behind him. He saw me inside the cage, and something in his face changed.
"Who did this?"
Daniel appeared behind him.
"Elliot, she was out of control. I was protecting her from embarrassing herself."
My father took the key from Daniel's hand so fast Daniel never finished the sentence.
He opened the door.
I stepped out shaking, with dirt on my knees and blood where the iron latch had cut my palm.
Then Daniel said the words that changed everything.
"Before you blame me, ask Mara why she hired Adrian Vale."
My father went completely still.
I stared at him.
"How do you know Adrian's name?"
Daniel smiled.
But I wasn't looking at Daniel anymore.
May you like
I was looking at my father.
Because Elliot Whitmore looked terrified.
