She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice when Jonathan appeared behind her.
It wasn’t until the faint scent of cigarette smoke drifted to her nose that Niamh realized someone was standing close.
Jonathan had approached so silently that even when she spun around and the two of them stood face to face, he said nothing.
Niamh noticed the cigarette between his fingers, his jaw tight, eyes stormy–he looked furious.
But she had no idea what he could possibly be angry about.
If anything, she should be the one upset here.
After all, Jonathan had moved her into a rehabilitation center run by Marina Thornton’s parents without so much as telling her.
The silence between them stretched. Finally, Jonathan’s voice broke through, cold
as ice.
“I was worried your leg wouldn’t heal properly. I put you in the best rehab facility money can buy… and this is how you repay me?”
He slapped a slip of paper against her face.
Niamh glanced down–it was the very agreement she’d written by hand just this morning.
The contents were damning: she’d promised, after divorcing Jonathan, to transfer her ten percent of The Thomas Group’s shares to Michael, free of charge.
She wasn’t even surprised anymore that the agreement had ended up in Jonathan’s
hands.
At first, she hadn’t understood how Michael could have known the details of her divorce settlement with Jonathan. She had assumed Michael was after the shares, plain and simple.
But after hearing what Michael said–right after he’d kicked her cane across the room–she realized he was almost certainly working for Marina.
She was,,
after all, staying in a rehab center owned by Marina’s parents.
In other words, this was Marina’s turf.
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It wouldn’t have been difficult for Marina to get her hands on the divorce papers, especially since, at the time, Niamh hadn’t thought they were of any real value.
Clearly, Marina still cared deeply about that ten percent stake–even though she was about to become the new lady of The Thomas Group.
All Marina needed was for Jonathan to find out Niamh had agreed to hand over her shares behind his back, and he’d inevitably change his mind.
Niamh had guessed right.
Too bad she realized it all too late.
But even if she’d figured it out sooner, she still would have agreed to Michael’s
terms.
She couldn’t just stand by and watch Lana Guthrie get fired for helping her.
The truth was, she’d never wanted the shares in the first place.
But that didn’t mean she wanted Jonathan to misunderstand her motives, either.
“If I told you… that Marina sent that guy with the glasses to threaten me into signing, by using Lana’s job as leverage–would you believe me?”
Jonathan’s eyes flickered upward, just a fraction.
“Do you have any proof?”
His question was calm, blunt–almost clinical.
Niamh drew a slow breath. “No.”
Jonathan gave a cold, mirthless laugh.
“And without proof, why should I believe you?”
He had a point. She hadn’t expected him to believe her anyway.
“Fine, then just assume I did it on purpose. That I handed those shares to your rival, just like I warned you I might when you insisted on giving them to me. Remember? I asked you, what if I sold them to one of your competitors?”
The truth was, she wasn’t even sure Michael counted as Jonathan’s rival. But judging by Jonathan’s reaction, he must consider the transfer of those ten percent shares to Michael a serious threat to The Thomas Group.
“Even if he threatened you–even if it was for Lana–do you have any idea what ten percent of The Thomas Group is worth? How many people’s livelihoods depend on
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it?”
Jonathan took a step forward, closing the distance between them.
For a moment, Niamh felt she couldn’t breathe.
His eyes were as dark and impenetrable as a midnight marsh.
“So, the entire Thomas Group… means less to you than Lana?”
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