CHAPTER TWO
1026 Words
THREE YEARS LATER…
Five years.
Five years since I walked out of that house with nothing but a broken heart and my dignity. Five years since Liam Carter looked me dead in the eyes and chose my stepsister over me.
I buttoned my blazer in the elevator mirror, barely recognizing the woman staring back.
Rosa Carter was dead.
Rosa Vandermeer, daughter of Helena Vandermeer, CEO of Vandermeer Holdings, one of the most powerful women on the East Coast, was very much alive.
Turns out my mother hadn't abandoned me as a child. She'd been forced out by my father's family, stripped of custody. When she found me three years ago, trembling in that interview chair, she cried for forty minutes straight. I almost didn't forgive her.
Almost.
But then I looked at Mikey, my son, Liam's son — the boy who would never know his father's last name — and I understood what a mother would sacrifice to protect her child.
Now I was Helena's right hand. Her successor.
The elevator doors slid open.
"Miss Vandermeer." My assistant Claire fell into step beside me immediately, tablet in hand, heels clicking double-time to match my pace. "Your nine o'clock is already in the conference room. Carter Developments is ten minutes out."
I stopped walking.
Claire nearly collided into my back.
"Say that again."
"Carter Developments." She scrolled her tablet nervously. "Your mother confirmed the merger meeting yesterday. They've been struggling — bad investments, some scandal with their PR last quarter. They need Vandermeer capital desperately. Mr. Carter personally requested—"
"Which Mr. Carter?"
She looked up. "Liam Carter. CEO."
The name landed like a stone dropped into still water.
I stood there for exactly three seconds. Then I exhaled slowly through my nose and kept walking.
"Push the meeting thirty minutes."
"But he's already—"
"Thirty minutes, Claire."
---
I sat in my office and stared at the city below.
Mikey would be at school now. Monday mornings he had football practice and always called after, complaining that his coach was too strict. He had Liam's jaw, Liam's stubborn mouth. Some nights that nearly broke me. Most mornings it made me fight harder.
My phone buzzed.
Mom: He doesn't know it's you. I made sure of it. Your call how this goes.
I smiled despite myself. Helena Vandermeer conducted business warfare the way other people breathed. Natural. Effortless. She'd kept my identity from Carter Developments entirely, conducting everything through proxies. As far as Liam knew, he was meeting a Vandermeer executive.
He had no idea which one.
I touched up my lipstick, stood, and walked to the conference room.
---
I heard his voice before I saw him.
That low, measured tone he used in professional settings — careful, controlled, performing confidence. I knew every layer of it. I'd spent seven years studying that voice, loving it, believing every word it produced.
I pushed open the door.
He was standing at the window with his back to me, speaking to the two men beside him. Broader than I remembered. A few silver strands threaded through his dark hair now. Time had been generous to Liam Carter.
"Gentlemen."
He turned.
The colour left his face so completely it was almost satisfying.
Almost.
I crossed the room with my hand extended, my face perfectly composed — the product of five years of rebuilding myself from concrete and rage.
"Rosa." It came out like something had punched through him.
"Mr. Carter." I shook his hand firmly and released it. "Please sit. We have a lot to get through."
He didn't sit immediately. He just stared at me like I was a ghost he hadn't prepared himself to meet.
Good. I hadn't prepared to spare him either.
I opened my folder. "Carter Developments has had a difficult eighteen months. Your Q3 losses were significant, your expansion into the Chicago market stalled, and your brand took considerable damage after the Eunice Carter interview in September." I looked up then, briefly. "I read that one. Unfortunate."
Something flickered across his face.
The interview. Eunice, bored and reckless, had gone on a podcast and bragged openly about how she'd gotten Liam. The affair, the pregnancy strategy — all of it spilled out in her chatty, laughing voice. Social media had torn them apart for two weeks. His mother had apparently not spoken to him since.
Karma moved slowly.
But it moved.
"We're seeking a capital injection of forty million," one of his associates said, leaning forward.
"I know what you're seeking." I didn't look at him. "The question is what Vandermeer gets in return."
"Thirty percent equity stake and full board representation," Liam said quietly.
I finally looked at him fully. He was watching me with an expression I couldn't fully read. Shame, maybe. Something that lived next door to it.
"We want forty percent."
His jaw tightened. "That's—"
"Non-negotiable." I closed the folder. "Carter Developments approached us, Mr. Carter. Not the other way around. You need this deal. We don't." I stood, smoothing my blazer. "Take twenty-four hours. Review the terms. If you agree, we proceed. If not, I wish you luck finding forty million elsewhere before your next board meeting."
I was almost at the door when he spoke.
"Rosa."
I stopped. I didn't turn around.
"You look—" He paused. "You look well."
I let the silence sit for a long moment.
"I am." I glanced back over my shoulder, just once, just enough. "Surprisingly well."
I walked out.
---
Claire was waiting in the hallway with coffee and the expression of someone who had heard everything through the glass walls and was trying very hard to look professional about it.
I took the coffee.
"Cancel my lunch. I need to pick Mikey up from school today."
"Of course." She hesitated. "He called, by the way. Said to tell you, and I'm quoting directly here — coach is being a clown again."
I laughed. A real one — the kind that started in my chest.
The kind Liam Carter had nothing to do with anymore.
I walked back to my office and didn't look back once.
- Writer
