Chapter 101 Adeline
Adeline’s POV
"You're overthinking it."
Percy’s deep voice rumbled against my back, breaking the quiet of the dark bedroom.
It was hours after the Whitmore dinner party. We were tangled together in the massive bed at the penthouse with the city lights casting faint shadows across the ceiling.
I had been lying awake for the better part of an hour, my mind spinning like a top over the haunted look in Evelyn Whitmore's eyes.
I shifted onto my side to rest my head on Percy’s bare chest. His arm instinctively tightened around my waist, and his warm hand smoothed down the curve of my back.
"I know I am," I admitted quietly, my fingertips tracing the edge of a scar near his collarbone. "But you saw her face, Percy. She almost dropped her glass. She looked at me like I was a ghost."
"She looked at you like you resembled a dead relative she misses," Percy corrected. "Evelyn is an old matriarch who just spent a week in fear that her family's entire legacy was going to be publicly obliterated. Stress does strange things to the mind, Adeline, you know that. She was emotionally exhausted. She was looking for something familiar to ground her, and her brain projected it onto you."
He pressed a warm kiss to the top of my head when I didn't say anything. "Don't let Evelyn's ghosts haunt you, baby." Percy murmured, his breathing already starting to slow as sleep reclaimed him. "We won. The threat is gone. Go to sleep."
He was right. I knew he was right. My father was a ruthless, bloodthirsty Russian gang boss. There was no way his violent past had ever crossed the elegant upbringing of the Whitmores. It was just a coincidence. With that thought firmly in my head, I let Percy's heartbeat finally lull me to sleep.
The next morning, I was back at my desk at Royal & Associates with a fresh cup of black coffee, and I couldn't stop thinking about Evelyn Whitmore.
I had arrived at the firm early, well before the usual chaos began. I booted up my computer, intending to review my notes for the day, but my hands hovered over the keyboard.
Impulsively, I opened a new private browser tab. I hesitated for a fraction of a second before I quickly typed out Genevieve Whitmore and quickly hit enter before I changed my mind.
A dozen articles popped up instantly, mostly scanned society pages from the late eighties and glowing obituaries detailing a lifetime of her philanthropy. I clicked on a digital archive from the New York Times detailing a charity gala from 1985.
A black-and-white photograph slowly loaded on the screen, and I immediately understood why Evelyn was so surprised. In the picture, Genevieve was in a beaded ballgown, laughing at something. She was probably caught unaware.
Her bone structure was like mine, and she had the exact shade of my dark eyes, even down to the way her brow arched naturally.
I reached up to trace the arch of her cheek on the screen. It was like looking into a distorted black and white mirror. Evelyn hadn't been projecting at all; she knew what she was saying. I looked exactly like her mother-in-law.
"How is that even possible?" I whispered as I tried to puzzle the pieces together.
"Volkov!" I was yanked out of my thoughts when David, one of the junior paralegals, burst into my office. His breathing was loud and his tie was askew. He clutched a thick legal binder to his chest like a lifeline.
"David," I blinked as I slammed my laptop shut. "Good morning. Who's dead?"
"The Miller-Hayes acquisition," David gasped as he dropped the heavy binder onto my desk. "Opposing counsel just went rogue. They filed a motion for an emergency injunction to halt the merger at 7:00 AM this morning. They are claiming antitrust violations and fraud. Judge Sullivan granted an emergency hearing for ten o'clock."
All thoughts of Genevieve fled my mind as I raced through ways to save this merger. The firm was under attack, and millions of dollars were suddenly on the line.
"Ten o'clock?" I repeated, my brow furrowing in concentration. "That gives us less than two hours. Sullivan hates emergency injunctions. They must think they have a smoking gun."
"They claim they have a whistleblower," David said nervously. "Gregory is out of town at a deposition. Percy is in a board meeting with London. You're the senior associate on the file, Adeline. You have to get on this."
"Get my briefcase," I commanded, "and pull every precedent we have on Miller-Hayes's previous acquisitions. If opposing counsel wants a war before lunch, we're going to give them one."
I spent the next nine hours submerged in the brutal hands of corporate litigation. The emergency hearing was a bloodbath that I wasn't prepared for.
My opposing counsel was an arrogant but experienced litigator who thought he could walk all over me because I was a younger female associate. I saw him as another one of the men I had been handling since I became a lawyer.
His whistleblower's testimony was laughable, and I wasted no time in showing the court why it was a waste of the court's time.
By the time the clock struck two in the afternoon, Judge Sullivan not only threw out the injunction but also sanctioned the opposing counsel for wasting the court's time, but that wasn't the end of it. I spent the rest of the afternoon trapped in a conference room negotiating the fallout, drafting new airtight clauses and ensuring the merger was entirely bulletproof.
By the time I finally pushed through the heavy glass doors of the firm and stepped out into the cool New York night, the adrenaline that had kept me standing completely crashed.
Every muscle in my body ached and my eyes burned from staring at ink on paper for hours.
When I eventually made it up into the penthouse, Percy was standing in the kitchen, still wearing his suit trousers and a crisp dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He was pouring himself a glass, but the moment he heard my heels, he turned.
He took one look at my slumped shoulders and the exhaustion in my eyes.
Percy crossed the distance in long strides, meeting me in the foyer. He wrapped his massive arms around me and pulled me flush against his chest.
I let out a long, ragged sigh, letting all my weight collapse into his solid frame. I buried my face in his neck, breathing in the scent of cedar and expensive fabric.
"I heard about the Miller-Hayes injunction," Percy murmured, his hands rubbing circles into my tense lower back. "David told me you completely gutted them in front of Sullivan. I'm incredibly proud of you, baby."
"I am so tired, Percy," I whispered, my voice muffled against his skin. "I don't think I can form a complete sentence."
"Then don't," he commanded softly and leaned down to lift me off the ground and toward the bedroom.
I faintly remembered Genevieve and the striking resemblance we shared. I even opened my mouth to tell Percy about it, but I was too tired, so I just cast it out of my mind.
I would deal with that tomorrow.