PART 6 — Derek’s Second Betrayal
For one breath, the entire boardroom became a photograph.
Tiffany with her hand resting on the folder.
Al-Kareem standing too still behind her.
Derek at the end of the table, color draining from his face.
Julian staring at his brother with a kind of disbelief so cold it was almost worse than anger.
And Simone Rivers, seven months pregnant, standing beside the long glass table with her finger on the date that had undone the lie.
Julian was the first to speak.
“Derek.”
Derek’s jaw worked, but no sound came out.
Tiffany stepped back. “This is a misunderstanding.”
Simone looked at her. “No. This is the first honest thing in the room.”
Evelyn rose slowly from her chair.
She did not look fragile now.
She looked like the woman who had survived a dead husband, two sons raised under too much money, and decades of men underestimating her because she wore pearls.
“Derek,” she said. “Answer your brother.”
Derek stood.
His hands gripped the back of his chair.
“I did not know what she was doing with it.”
Julian’s voice was almost a whisper.
“With what?”
Derek closed his eyes.
Tiffany hissed, “Derek, stop.”
Julian turned toward security. “No one leaves.”
The doors closed.
Derek looked at Simone.
For one strange second, he seemed almost ashamed.
Then self-preservation took over.
“She asked me for a sample,” he said quickly. “She said she needed it for a private health screen. She told me she was worried she might be pregnant and wanted to rule out complications.”
Tiffany laughed sharply. “That is not what happened.”
Derek pointed at her. “You told me it was confidential.”
“You told me you wanted leverage,” Tiffany snapped.
The boardroom froze again.
Leverage.
The word revealed more than either of them intended.
Julian stepped closer to the table.
“What leverage?”
Derek looked trapped.
Al-Kareem shifted toward the door, but two security men blocked him.
Simone watched Derek’s face carefully.
She had once loved that face.
She had once believed every soft apology, every exhausted sigh, every promise that he was trying to become a better husband. Now she saw the machinery beneath it. The calculations. The cowardice. The desperate instinct to blame the nearest woman and call it survival.
“What leverage, Derek?” she asked.
His eyes met hers.
And maybe because she no longer looked afraid, he finally understood that lying would not save him.
“Against Julian,” he said.
Evelyn’s hand tightened around her cane.
Julian did not move.
Derek continued, voice low and bitter. “He controls everything. The company. The board. The family trust. Father trusted him with everything and left me scraps dressed up as a title.”
“You were president of international development,” Julian said.
“I was decoration!” Derek shouted.
The glass walls seemed to vibrate.
No one spoke.
Derek’s breathing grew ragged.
“You never let me build anything. Every deal I brought in, you reviewed. Every account, you restricted. Every mistake, you recorded. I was your brother, but you treated me like a liability.”
Julian’s expression did not change.
“You became one.”
Derek flinched.
Tiffany saw the wound and drove into it.
“He wanted proof the sainted Julian was not untouchable,” she said. “A scandal. A question. A whisper that maybe Julian had been too close to his brother’s wife. That maybe the perfect eldest son had fathered a secret child.”
Simone’s stomach turned.
Julian’s eyes moved to Derek.
“You were going to accuse me of being the father of Tiffany’s fake baby?”
Derek’s silence answered.
The board chair muttered, “Dear God.”
But Tiffany was not done.
She smiled now, sharp and desperate.
“It was elegant, really. If the test linked a Rivers male to me, the press would do the rest. Derek would claim he had been betrayed. Simone would look unstable. Julian would lose moral control of the board. The Dubai vote would pause. Al-Kareem would step in with a rescue offer. Everyone wins.”
Simone stared at her.
“You call that winning?”
Tiffany’s eyes flashed.
“I call it surviving in a world where women like you get protected just for being wives.”
Simone stepped closer.
“No, Tiffany. I was not protected. I was humiliated on a plane while my husband watched. I was lied about by half the city before breakfast. I was dragged into a war over money while carrying a child. Do not confuse my silence with safety.”
For the first time, Tiffany had no answer.
Then the doctor from New Jersey cleared his throat.
Every head turned.
He was sweating.
“I was told the documentation would be used only as a private inheritance safeguard,” he said.
Julian looked at him. “You falsified a prenatal claim.”
“I did not know it was false.”
“You attached a male family sample to a woman who is not pregnant.”
The doctor’s mouth opened.
Closed.
The attorney beside Julian stood and placed a tablet on the table.
“We confirmed with three databases,” he said. “There is no verified pregnancy attached to Tiffany Blake under any legal name.”
The room erupted.
Tiffany’s face went white beneath her makeup.
Derek stared at her. “You’re not pregnant?”
She looked at him with contempt.
“You are astonishingly stupid.”
That was the moment Derek finally understood.
He had not been a lover.
He had not been a partner.
He had not even been a co-conspirator.
He had been an entry point.
A weak door into a locked empire.
Al-Kareem spoke for the first time.
“This is becoming theatrical. I suggest everyone be careful before making accusations that could affect international business relations.”
Julian turned to him.
“Your bid is dead.”
Al-Kareem smiled faintly. “You may not have the authority to decide that by tomorrow.”
Julian’s phone buzzed.
Then the board chair’s.
Then the attorney’s.
One by one, devices around the room began lighting up.
Simone felt the shift before anyone explained it.
Something had gone public.
Julian looked at his screen.
His face hardened.
Derek whispered, “What now?”
The board chair read aloud, voice shaking.
“Breaking: leaked documents suggest Rivers Global heir dispute may invalidate pending Dubai merger.”
Tiffany’s smile returned slowly.
She had lost the room.
But she had already sent the bomb outside it.
Julian looked at her.
“You leaked sealed board documents.”
Tiffany lifted one shoulder.
“You left me in the rain.”
Simone felt a sudden sharp tightness across her belly.
She gripped the table.
Julian saw immediately.
“Simone?”
“I’m fine,” she said, but the words came out thin.
Evelyn was already moving toward her.
The nurse waiting outside rushed in.
Derek stepped forward, panic breaking through everything else. “Simone?”
Julian blocked him with one arm.
“Do not come near her.”
Simone tried to breathe slowly.
In through the nose.
Out through the mouth.
The room blurred.
The nurse guided her into a chair.
“It may be stress,” the nurse said. “But we need to get her to the hospital now.”
Julian’s control cracked.
“Car. Now.”
As they rushed Simone toward the private elevator, Tiffany called after them, voice sweet as poison.
“Careful, Simone. Empires hate fragile heirs.”
Simone stopped.
Julian turned, furious.
But Simone lifted one hand.
She looked back at Tiffany from the elevator doorway, pale but steady.
“My child is not fragile,” she said.
Then her gaze shifted to Derek.
“But your lies are.”
The elevator doors closed.
And behind them, on the top floor of Rivers Global, Tiffany Blake smiled as if she had just won.
May you like
Because no one in that room knew the final document had not been leaked to the press.
It had been sent to a judge.
