Prudence had watched Robert Sheppard write in his diaries so many times that on the night when she was sacked, she grabbed the notebooks stacked toward the front of the nightstand drawer. At the time, it was simply out of spite. Having worked the morning shift on more than one occasion, she knew if he didn’t have them at his fingertips, Robert would awaken screaming and ranting and turning the house into turmoil. It was petty and childish, but most paybacks are.

By the time she had reached her flat, she was more concerned with how much liquor was in her cabinet than what Robert had written, so stuffing the notebooks into her wardrobe, she drank herself to sleep. They would remain there for months, settled in between scuffed shoes and empty boxes until one day while rummaging through her closet for something to wear, a blouse fell off a hanger. When she picked it up, she saw Robert’s diaries. Tittering under breath at her deviousness, she gathered them up and headed to the rubbish bin, only to stop before she dropped them inside. What could a feeble-minded stroke victim possibly have to say that would have filled so many pages?

She went to work as she always did, but later that night, with fuzzy slippers warming her feet and port warming her belly, she settled into her favorite overstuffed recliner, opened one of the notebooks and immediately became entranced. Robert’s words spoke of an arranged marriage and secrets built on handshakes. He spoke of restitution and the price Addison Kane would pay if discovered, and for a few hours, blackmail crossed Prudence’s mind, but Addison frightened her. She was a powerful woman with powerful people at her fingertips, but even Addison Kane couldn’t stop the post from making their deliveries. In the wee hours of the next morning, Prudence began writing a letter to the board of Kane Holdings.

If someone had dropped a pin on the carpet, it would have been heard for all eyes were on Addison, but refusing to say a word, she continued to stare at Reece. It was no longer her place to speak. It was his.

“All right, enough of this,” Reece stated, rocking forward in his chair. “Addison, investigations have already been made, and it’s been confirmed that the handwriting on that paper belongs to Robert Sheppard, but it’s bollocks, and you and I both know it. From what I hear the man suffered several strokes, so it goes without saying he was most likely not in his right mind when he scrawled that story. So, just tell us he was daft, and this is all over. The company remains yours, and we go about business as usual.”