Chapter 2 - THE RAIN AND THE GHOSTLY FLEET
Outside the Manhattan Grand, the April rain had settled into a steady, gray sheet that blurred the yellow cabs and towering glass facades of Madison Avenue into impressionistic smears of light.
A liveried doorman rushed forward, holding a massive black umbrella with the corporate crest of the hotel emblazoned in silver.
“Car for you, Mrs. Weston?” the doorman asked, his voice strained with polite anxiety. He had seen the way Andrew walked in with the red-haired girl; in a city like New York, doormen knew everything before the police report was even filed.
“No, thank you, Thomas,” Emma said, her voice completely level. “I’ll walk to the corner.”
“Mrs. Weston, it’s pouring—you’ll catch your death, and—”
“I’m fine,” she interrupted gently, stepping out from the marble portico and into the cool, biting bite of the spring rain.
She didn't take an umbrella. She let the fine, cold mist settle against her cheeks and soak into the dark strands of her hair. It felt grounding. For three years, she had lived inside a gilded cage of climate-controlled penthouses, filtered air, and suffocating expectations, always careful not to wrinkle her dress, always careful not to raise her voice, always striving to be the quiet, decorative backdrop to Andrew’s relentless ascent.
Now, standing on the wet pavement with the rain soaking through the silk of her ivory gown, she felt lighter than she had in years.
She walked half a block down the side street, her patent leather pumps clicking steadily against the concrete, until she reached the relative quiet of a recessed stone alcove beside a closed boutique.
She opened her small, beaded evening clutch to pull out her phone.
It was vibrating furiously against her palm.
Missed Call: Andrew Weston (1) Missed Call: Andrew Weston (2) Text Message: Andrew Weston: Where the hell did you go? You’re making a scene by leaving early. Get back inside before the columnists notice. Text Message: Andrew Weston: Emma. Answer your phone.
Emma stared at the screen, her thumb hovering over the screen for a moment before she tapped the small power button, silencing the ringer entirely, and tossed the device back into the bottom of her purse.
Let him panic. Let him search the ballroom. Let him check the powder rooms.
Let him walk into his private study back on Park Avenue, reach for his Montblanc pen, and find those divorce papers staring up at him like a silent ghost waiting to testify.
A sleek, black town car pulled up quietly to the curb beside her, its hazard lights blinking in a slow, hypnotic rhythm. The rear window rolled down smoothly, revealing the driver—a middle-aged man in a dark wool overcoat and a flat cap, who tipped his brim respectfully.
“Mrs. Weston?” the driver asked.
Emma paused, her hand tightening around the strap of her purse. “Yes?”
“Your ride is here, ma’am. Teterboro Private Terminal. Gate 4. Everything is prepared.”
Emma frowned, stepping back half a step. “There must be some mistake. I didn't order a car to Teterboro. I was going to hail a cab to the station.”
The driver reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a small, heavy silver card embossed with a single letter: an ornate, gothic V.
“No mistake, Mrs. Weston. Your father sends his regards. He said to tell you that the nest is empty, the hawk is blind, and the sky is wide open.”
Emma’s breath hitched in her throat.
Father?
Julian Vance—her father—had not spoken to her in three years. Not since the day she married Andrew Weston against his vehement, roaring objections. Julian had stood in his walnut-paneled study in Greenwich and told her, with the cold, absolute certainty of a man who had built a multi-billion-dollar international logistics empire from the ground up: “That boy isn’t marrying you, Emma. He’s marrying the Vance name and our shipping lanes. The moment you stop being useful to his ambition, he will throw you away like a used napkin. And when he does, don't come crying to my door.”
Pride had kept Emma away. She had wanted to prove her father wrong. She had wanted to show the world that she could build a loving, normal life based on genuine affection, far away from the cutthroat corporate brutality of the Vance shipping syndicate.
She had spent three years swallowing her pride, hiding her bruises, and pretending her marriage wasn't slowly suffocating her, all because she refused to let her father be right.
And now?
Now, her father had sent a private car to snatch her out of the rain in the middle of Manhattan, and a private jet waiting at Teterboro with her name on the manifest.
“Is... is the jet ready?” Emma asked, her voice trembling slightly for the first time all evening.
“Waiting on the tarmac with engines warm, ma’am,” the driver said, reaching across the seat to push open the heavy rear door. “And Dr. Althaus—your father’s personal physician—is on board to ensure you and the baby are comfortable for the trans-Atlantic flight.”
Trans-atlantic?
Emma stared at him, bewildered. “Flight to where?”
May you like
The driver offered a thin, enigmatic smile as he gestured toward the plush leather interior of the car.
“Home, Mrs. Weston. Back to the estate in the Swiss Alps. Where nobody from Wall Street can ever reach you again.”
