Chapter 1 - The Seat at the End of the Table
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The crystal chandeliers cast a golden glow over the forty-foot walnut dining table, illuminating the elite of California’s wine country. Investors, distributors, and executives sat shoulder-to-shoulder, their glasses filled with Hale Crest Holdings’ finest vintage. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sprawling Santa Ynez vineyards disappeared into the night.
At the far end of the table, isolated from the center of power, sat Evelyn Hale.
She wore a midnight-blue dress, elegantly simple, devoid of the flashy diamonds that adorned the other wives in the room. She didn’t need to compete with the massive banner celebrating the company’s fortieth anniversary, nor did she care to compete with the woman sitting at her husband’s right hand.
Vanessa Cole wore an ivory silk gown that practically screamed for attention. Her hand rested possessively on Ethan Hale’s arm. Ethan, Evelyn’s husband of nine years, was holding court, laughing with the board members as if the world belonged to him.
But suddenly, the laughter died. The room went dead silent. Every single eye at the table shifted away from Ethan and locked onto Evelyn.
Ethan let out a nervous, confused chuckle, his fingers tightening around the stem of his wineglass.
“Dad, come on,” Ethan said, his voice echoing in the cavernous dining room.
Arthur Hale, the seventy-one-year-old patriarch and founder of the company, did not smile. His face was carved from granite. He slowly lowered his glass, his eyes burning a hole through his only son.
“I said, repeat it,” Arthur’s voice cracked like a whip, causing a waiter in the corner to flinch. “Repeat what you just called your wife.”
Vanessa quickly removed her hand from Ethan’s arm. Her polished, media-trained smile faltered. For the first time all evening, the PR executive looked genuinely terrified.
Ethan glanced around the table, the weight of a dozen billionaires' stares pressing down on him. His ego wouldn't let him back down. To retreat now would make him look weak in front of the investors he was trying to woo.
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He straightened his shoulders, puffing his chest out.
“I said,” Ethan announced, his voice dripping with condescension, “Evelyn is useless to what this family needs right now.”
