A month passed in a blur.

Everything was finally moving smoothly. It had been exactly four weeks since I walked out of Mason’s house. In that time, I had stepped directly into my rightful place at the Hawthorne Group, running my father’s massive multi-billion-dollar conglomerate on his behalf.

True to form, Mason had signed the divorce papers within twenty-four hours of being served. He was a narcissist, but he wasn’t entirely stupid—he knew better than to go to war when Mr. Blackwood was holding all the cards. He thought he was free of me. He thought he had won by keeping his dwindling corporate shares.

I was sitting behind my...