Chapter 7

To cover the 8.7 million, Sienna went live on social media. On camera she accused me of using money and power to push her to the edge. She walked through the auction and the jewelry salon, trying to hang the whole thing on Whitmore.

It trended within the hour. Then Blake Group's PR team put out a statement overnight. Hunter signed off on it. It cut her loose completely.

"With regard to the malicious bidding at the Peninsula auction and the destruction of a wedding ring at the Fifth Avenue jewelry salon: these were personal acts driven by Sienna's own jealousy. Neither Blake Group nor Mr. Blake had any knowledge of or responsibility for them. Mr. Blake has issued a legal notice requiring Sienna to vacate his apartment within twenty-four hours and is pursuing recovery of gifts given during the relationship."

He handed her over to make peace with me.

The next morning, trying to save the company, Hunter held a press conference on Wall Street. He bowed to a few hundred reporters, said Sienna had misled him, apologized to the Whitmore family, and announced her indefinite suspension.

The doors banged open.

Sienna went straight up onto the stage and slapped him across the face.

The mic picked it up. The room reacted, and the shutters went off.

"Hunter! You threw me under the bus!" she screamed. "You think handing me over gets you forgiven? Dream on!"

She grabbed the microphone off the table and hit play on a recording.

His voice came out of the speakers.

"Clara? She's an ATM. If I didn't need the Whitmore credit line I couldn't stand being in the same room as her. The second the money clears, I'm done with her."

Total silence, then a wall of camera noise.

He lunged for the phone and shoved her to the floor. "You set me up!"

That recording ended any chance he had with me, and he knew it. So he stopped pretending. He had his assistant cue the projector and played the salon's security footage — Sienna deliberately smashing the blue diamond ring, start to finish.

"You didn't just destroy private property, you used my name to run up company money on luxury goods!" He pointed down at her. "Legal already turned everything over to the police. Enjoy prison."

They went at each other in front of every camera in the room.

"You gave me the card! You told me to go after Clara!"

"If you hadn't had to try that ring on, would I be here right now?!"

The whole thing streamed everywhere. They became the joke of Wall Street. Her sponsors moved fast — the brand pulled the gown off her on the spot and she left with a coat over her shoulders.

That night it rained again.

The story kept growing. Blake's stock cratered and regulators halted trading. The board started removal proceedings overnight. He was finished.

Hunter knelt outside Whitmore's headquarters in the rain and stayed there all night. Security moved him three times. He lay down in the standing water and wouldn't go. He knew the woman in that building was his only way out.

At dawn he lifted his head toward the windows on the top floor. Begging wasn't going to work. So he played his last card.

He picked up his phone and called my direct line.

"Clara. The kidnapping. The fire." His voice came through. "I'm the one who saved you. You promised you'd love me forever."