CRAVING DADDY'S BEST FRIEND

Chapter Forty two: The front

Abigail Macron

The massive mahogany double doors didn't crash open; they drifted inward with a slow, heavy finality that felt like the closing of a tomb. The silence that rushed into the dining wing from the darkened executive corridor was absolute, thick with the scent of ozone and cold stone as the estate's backup generators failed to kick in.

Caleb didn't panic, and he didn't pull out of me. He remained heavily anchored inside my body for three long, agonizing heartbeats, his chest rising and falling against my bare breasts in an uneven, powerful rhythm. His dark eyes never left mine, but his hand slowly slid away from my throat, tracking down the slate table until his fingers closed tightly around the heavy brass paperweight he had left on my pillow hours before.

The corporate strategist had a weapon.

A single, heavy footstep echoed from the threshold.

But it wasn't my father who stepped into the dim, alpine light of the dining room.

It was a woman. She was dressed in a tailored, midnight-blue trench coat, her dark hair pulled back into a flawless, icy chignon that didn't have a single strand out of place. Her face was a masterclass in aristocratic detachment, her pale gray eyes scanning the room—taking in the shattered laptop, the clothes discarded on the slate floorboards, and the raw, unmistakable sight of the founder's daughter pinned beneath the former Chief Operating Officer.

It was Victoria Vance, the chief legal counsel for the Macron global trust, and the woman who held the ultimate enforcement authority over our Delaware filings.

"Your father didn't come, Abigail," Victoria said, her voice a cool, precise chime that didn't betray a single trace of shock or judgment at the scene before her. She stopped exactly three paces into the room, her leather heels clicking softly against the tile. "David is currently on a private transport back to New York to answer a formal inquiry by the federal regulatory board. He used his administrative keys to drop this perimeter purely to give me access before the local police locked down the valley."

The name of the regulatory board hit the room like a physical blow.

Caleb slowly slid out of me, a low, involuntary hiss escaping my lips at the sudden rush of cold air against my wet skin. Without a word of apology, he stood to his full height, completely unbothered by his nakedness as he wrapped the charcoal towel back around his waist, his 6'4" frame immediately forming a defensive wall between Victoria and the table where I lay.

"The Delaware court didn't grant the injunction, did they, Victoria?" Caleb rasped, his voice dropping into that dark, clinical baritone that reasserted his place on the board.

"The court didn't even read it," Victoria replied smoothly. She reached into her trench coat, pulling out a slim, encrypted data drive and setting it down on the edge of the slate table, right next to where my hand was still trembling from the aftermath of the overload. "The moment Abigail signed page fourteen of the riders, the liquidity shift became a sovereign corporate action. David tried to freeze a ghost, Caleb. But the ghost now has a permanent seat at the table."

I slowly sat up, pulling the ruined cream cashmere sweater over my bare chest to shield myself from her gaze, though the sovereignty in my chest didn't waver. My thighs were still slick, the heavy, pulsing trace of Caleb's release warm against my skin, but my mind was already tracking the coordinates of the data drive.

"What's on the drive, Victoria?" I asked, my voice steady, the cold executive authority returning to my cadence with a terrifying, natural ease.

Victoria looked past Caleb, her gray eyes locking onto mine with a sudden, sharp respect that I had never seen her give my father.

"The complete underwriting files for the New York real estate portfolio," Victoria whispered. "The bedrock David tried to burn. He didn't realize that by freezing his operational accounts, you didn't just isolate him—you triggered the automatic buyout clauses for the secondary partners. As of twenty minutes ago, Abigail... you don't just own the trust."

She paused, a cold, triumphant smile finally breaking the mask of her face.

"You own the entire vanguard. The board meeting is officially reconvened, and you are the maj

ority shareholder.”