The plan was elegant in the way that only desperate plans can be.
Nathaniel would request a private meeting with Vanessa under the pretense of negotiating a settlement, a controlled surrender designed to look genuine. While Vanessa sat across from him focused on winning, James and Claire would be accessing Richard Hale’s financial records through a contact at the firm that had originally handled the Cole Industries restructuring twenty years ago.
“She will know it is a trap,” Claire said that evening, the two of them sitting on opposite ends of the couch in James’s guest suite, takeout containers between them, reviewing the plan for the third time.
“She will suspect it might be,” Nathaniel said. “But her ego will not let her walk away from an apparent victory.”
“You know her that well.
