Chapter 3

"Sorry, everybody. Traffic was a nightmare."

Michael's voice carried the easy confidence of a man used to being forgiven, with just enough apology laid over it.

He probably thought this was an ordinary funding meeting.

He had no idea he had walked into his own trial.

He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.

"Michael Grant, Grant Innovations. And you must be the mysterious Ms. Carter."

He stopped mid-sentence.

Because I looked up.

I looked at him with the faintest smile on my face.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still.

I watched the color drain out of his face an inch at a time.

The ease and the confidence and the manners went out of his eyes, and shock came in behind them.

His eyes widened as he stared at me, like a man watching something climb up out of a grave.

His assistant felt the room change and whispered to him. "Mr. Grant?"

He didn't react.

He only stared at me with his lips shaking and no sound coming out of him.

The air went stiff, and the other executives looked at one another with no idea what was happening.

Finally, he forced a few words up out of his throat. "It's you."

He seemed to be reaching for my name and coming up empty, which made sense, because Emily Carter had been dead a long time.

The smile on my lips deepened.

I leaned back, cool and unhurried, soaking in his panic.

Five years, Michael.

He had lived well, well enough to have wiped me out of his mind completely.

At last, he realized who I was.

Then he recognized me, or he recognized a face that was most of the way to the one in his memory and nothing like it at the same time.

"Emily?" He blurted out, his voice cracking. "You're alive?"

A sharp crack went through the room.

His coffee cup slid right off the table and hit the floor.

It shattered into pieces.

Brown liquid splashed onto the hem of his expensive suit pants.

He didn't even notice.

The whole room gasped.

Everyone was left speechless by what just happened.

I ignored the stares around me.

I looked at the man I had once loved down to the bone and now hated exactly that deeply.

Slowly, I slid the folder in front of me to the middle of the table, and the movement was light and carried the weight of a hammer.

"It's been a while."

My voice was quiet, and it reached every corner of the room.

"Thanks to you, I'm still breathing."

I paused to enjoy how white his face had gone.

Then, I delivered the final blow.

"And I'm here today to buy your company."

I gave him a brilliant smile that never got anywhere near my eyes.

"Sign it, ex-husband."