“I’m coming with you.”
“No.”
Vanessa stopped.
“Excuse me?”
“This is a board meeting.”
“And I’m an executive officer.”
“You’re communications.”
Her face changed.
Barely.
But Ethan saw it.
Three days earlier, they had been drinking champagne in a private plunge pool when Vanessa told him she was tired of being treated like an employee.
He had laughed.
She had not.
Now she crossed her arms.
“You told me I’d have a seat after the Harbor Crown transaction.”
“I told you we’d discuss it.”
“You said—”
“Vanessa.”
He lowered his voice.
“Go back to the villa.”
Her jaw tightened.
Then she smiled.
It was a strange smile.
Too calm for someone who had just been dismissed.
“Of course.”
Ethan didn’t notice.
He was already walking toward the elevators.
Upstairs, Grace sat at the center of a walnut conference table while eleven people waited in silence.
