Chapter 107 Emma
Cassie
I slipped out of bed while Grey was still sleeping, his dark blonde hair tousled against my cream-colored pillows, one muscular arm stretched across the space where I'd been lying. In sleep, the lines of stress around his eyes had smoothed away, making him look younger, more vulnerable. The morning stubble darkened his jaw, and I resisted the urge to trace my finger along the sharp line of his cheekbone. He needed rest ,we both did but the manila envelope from my father's company sat on the like a loaded gun, and I couldn't ignore it any longer.
I grabbed my silk robe from the chair by the window, wrapping it around myself as I padded barefoot to the bathroom got cleaned up and down the stairs wearing my blue and white striped dress with White slide on sneakers . The morning light streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows revealed a house that felt more like home with Grey in it, though I wasn't ready to examine that revelation too closely.
My home office had always been my sanctuary a place where I could control the chaos of business and family politics. The floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were filled with everything from maritime law texts to first-edition novels, while my glass desk overlooked the garden where jasmine and roses bloomed in wild profusion. Filing cabinets contained the organized detritus of my business life, each document precisely categorized and stored both physically and digitally. It was a room that reflected my need for order in a world that often felt chaotic.
I settled into my chair with a steaming cup of coffee and the manila envelope, steeling myself for whatever fresh hell my father had delivered to my doorstep. The documents were thick, official-looking, and stamped with the seal of Hunter Maritime Holdings. My stomach knotted as I began to read.
The conference call with my father was scheduled for nine AM sharp. Alexander Hunter was many things—ruthless businessman, absent father during my childhood, master manipulator when it suited his purposes—but punctuality was religion to him. I'd learned long ago that keeping him waiting was a cardinal sin in his book.
At exactly nine o'clock, my phone rang.
"Cassandra." His voice crackled through the speakerphone, crisp and businesslike despite the fact that it was barely six AM in New York. "I trust you received the documents."
"I did." I flipped through the pages, seeing merger agreements, stock transfers, corporate restructuring plans that made my head spin. "Want to explain to me what this has to do with the O'Malleys?"
There was a pause, and I could picture him in his corner office overlooking Manhattan, probably nursing his third cup of black coffee while reviewing market reports on multiple screens.
"Everything, I'm afraid." There was something in his voice I rarely heard—regret, perhaps, or genuine concern. "The O'Malley Group has been acquiring our competitors systematically over the past eighteen months. They're positioning for a hostile takeover of Hunter Maritime."
My blood ran cold. I set down my coffee cup with trembling fingers. " you're just telling me this now?"
"I was hoping to resolve it quietly. Your... relationship with young O'Malley complicated matters considerably."
I gripped the phone tighter, my knuckles yellow against the black light metal to control my frustration. "My relationship has nothing to do with business, Dad."
"Doesn't it?" His voice was gentler now, almost paternal a tone he rarely used with me, one that reminded me of the few precious moments in my childhood when work hadn't consumed his entire existence.
"Cassandra, I need you to consider the possibility that this romance wasn't as accidental as it seemed. The timing, the circumstances, the way you met..."
The implication hit me like a physical blow. "You think Grey is using me."
"I think the O'Malley family is capable of using anyone to get what they want. Including their own son." He paused, and I could hear papers rustling in the background. "Look at page fifteen. The timeline."
I flipped to the page with shaking hands. There, in black and white, was a chronological breakdown of O'Malley Group's acquisitions. The dates made my stomach lurch. They'd started buying up our competitors just two months before Isabella's birthday party—the night Grey and I had met years ago .
"This could still be a coincidence," I said weakly.
"Could be. O'Malley senior was on the guest list for that party. He knew you'd be there. He knew you'd just gone through a messy divorce and you were stick in an engagement that would stall you and would be vulnerable."
"Stop." The word came out sharper than I'd intended. "Just stop. You don't know Grey like I do."
"I know the O'Malleys like you don't." His voice hardened. "I've been fighting them for twenty years, Cassandra. They don't make sentimental decisions. Everything is calculated, every move strategic."
I stared out at my garden, watching a bright yellow weaver bird work on its intricate nest in the old oak tree. The simple, natural beauty of it seemed to mock the ugly corporate machinations my father was describing.
"What are you asking me to do?" I asked quietly.
"Come home. Help me fight this. Use whatever influence you have with Greyson to find out their real strategy." He paused. " if you can't do that, at least protect yourself. Don't let them destroy you the way they're trying to destroy everything our family has built."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then we lose everything, sweetheart. The company, the fleet, the legacy your grandfather spent his life building. And you lose it too, whether O'Malley loves you or not."
The endearment caught me off guard. My father rarely called me anything but Cassandra, and the unexpected softness in his voice reminded me that beneath the corporate shark was a man who'd lost his wife too young and raised a daughter while building an empire.
"Dad... what if you're wrong about Grey I already have a solution?"
"Then I'll be the first to apologize. But what if I'm right? What if you're in love with a man who's been playing a role this entire time?"
I thought about Grey upstairs, about the vulnerability in his eyes when he'd told me about Vivian and the marriage that had apparently never ended. Either he was the most talented actor I'd ever met, or my father was wrong.
"I need time to think," I said.
"Time is something we don't have much of. The board meeting is next week. If they make their move then..." He trailed off, but I understood. If O'Malley Group launched their hostile takeover, we'd be playing defense instead of offense.
"Send me everything. Every document, every analysis, every piece of evidence you have about their acquisition strategy."
"Does that mean you'll help?"
"It means I'll get the full picture before I make any decisions." I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache building. "And Dad? If I find out you've been playing games with my personal life for business reasons..."
"You have my word that I haven't. Your relationship with O'Malley caught me as off-guard as anyone. "
The call ended with promises to review additional documents and schedule another meeting within forty-eight hours. I sat in the silence of my office, surrounded by the familiar comfort of my books and plants, trying to reconcile two different versions of reality.
Version one: I was a woman who'd found unexpected love with a man whose family happened to be business rivals with mine complicated, but not sinister.
Version two: I was a pawn in a corporate chess game, manipulated by people who saw human emotions as tools to be exploited.
I spread the documents across my desk, trying to make sense of the corporate maneuvering. Shell companies, acquisition dates, board appointments—it read like a blueprint for corporate warfare. The O'Malleys had been incredibly thorough, incredibly patient. If this was indeed a coordinated attack on my family's business, it had been years in the planning.
But did that necessarily mean Grey was involved? I thought about our conversations, the stories he'd told me about his family, the way his jaw tightened whenever his mother's name came up. He'd seemed as much a victim of O'Malley machinations as anyone else.
I was deep in a particularly dense merger document when a sound from upstairs made me freeze. At first, I thought I'd imagined it—a muffled cry that could have been anything. Then it came again, louder this time, filled with anguish that made my chest tight with alarm.
Grey was screaming.
I bolted from my chair, papers scattering to the floor as I ran toward the stairs. His voice was raw with pain, calling out names I didn't recognize, words of loss and desperation that cut through me like glass. The sound was primal, broken, the cry of someone reliving their worst nightmare.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I burst into the bedroom to find Grey thrashing on the bed, sheets twisted around him like bonds. His face was contorted with a pain so profound it took my breath away. Even in sleep, tears tracked down his cheeks.
"Emma," he cried out, his voice breaking on the name. "I'm sorry, baby. Daddy's so sorry."
My heart shattered for him. This wasn't the calculated manipulation my father had warned me about. This was raw, devastating grief, the kind that comes from losing something precious and blaming yourself for its loss.
I sat on the edge of the bed and touched his shoulder gently. "Grey, wake up. You're dreaming."
His eyes snapped open, wild and unfocused, pupils dilated with terror. For a moment, he looked at me like he didn't know where he was, like he was still trapped in whatever hell his subconscious had conjured.
"Cassie?" His voice was hoarse, uncertain.
"I'm here. You're safe. You were having a nightmare."
Reality crashed back over him, and I watched him crumble. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, his breathing ragged and uneven.
"Fuck," he whispered. "Fuck, I'm sorry. I thought I was done with those."
I reached for him without hesitation, pulling him into my arms. He resisted for a moment, then collapsed against me, his body shaking with the aftershocks of whatever he'd experienced in his sleep.
" Emma?" I asked gently.
He was silent for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible, and it carried a weight of grief that made my own eyes fill with tears.
"My daughter."