Chapter243 A Watch Worth Over Ten Million
A few minutes later, Dominic pushed back his chair and stood up.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Evelyn grabbed the hem of his jacket the moment she realized he was leaving, her voice sharpening.
"You promised me tonight. You're not going anywhere."
Dominic's head was already full of Prescott wealth and that billion-dollar figure. He had no patience left for a scene.
He lowered his voice and kept it controlled.
"Something came up at home. It's important. I'll make it up to you another time."
"No!" Evelyn's temper flared. She could not stand anyone being more important to Dominic than her and their daughter, and that included his own children. "If you walk out that door right now, I'll..."
The back-and-forth between them got loud enough to draw looks from the surrounding tables.
The restaurant manager appeared quickly, flanked by two staff members, professional smile firmly in place but tone cool and final.
"I'm sorry to interrupt. If you have a private matter to settle, would you mind stepping outside? Your guests are being disturbed."
Dominic prided himself on moving through high society without a single crack in his image. Being politely asked to leave a restaurant in front of an audience was not something that had ever happened to him before.
He shook Evelyn's hand off his sleeve without a word, grabbed his jacket, and walked out under the stares of half the room.
He didn't look back once.
Evelyn stood where he left her, frozen in place, absorbing the looks coming from every direction.
--
Dominic drove back to the Lancaster residence at full speed.
In the living room, Arabella and Miranda were sitting together on the sofa, as if they had been waiting for him.
"Dad, you're home." Miranda looked up with a smile.
The tension in Dominic's face eased slightly. He slipped off his shoes, walked in, and fell back into the familiar posture of the head of the household.
"Have you eaten?"
"We have." Miranda stood and reached under the coffee table, pulling out two beautifully wrapped gift boxes. "I actually came to bring you both something."
She handed the larger box to Arabella, then held the smaller one out to Dominic with both hands. It was compact, clearly premium.
Dominic glanced at the size difference and felt a flicker of irritation.
He was the one who had transferred thirty million to her. Why was his gift smaller?
That thought lasted exactly as long as it took him to open the box.
Resting on velvet lining was a Patek Philippe. A limited commemorative edition. The dial caught the light with quiet, breathtaking precision.
Worth over twelve million dollars.
Dominic's pupils contracted. A smile broke across his face before he could contain it.
Arabella opened her box at the same moment, revealing a brand-new Hermès Birkin.
"I haven't forgotten what you did for me, Dad."
Miranda's voice landed perfectly.
Dominic immediately thought of the thirty million he had transferred, and his chest swelled.
He had been expecting more than a watch. But this was a very good start.
Miranda watched the greed settle behind his eyes and kept her expression warm.
"Prescott set this whole thing up as a test for me," she said, letting just enough vulnerability into her voice. "Building the company completely on my own, no interference. It made me realize something." She paused. "When everything gets hard, family is the only thing I can actually count on."
She had spent over ten million dollars on that watch. It had cost her.
But Dominic needed to see returns before he would keep reaching into his pocket. This was just the bait.
She let a beat pass, then continued.
"When Clifton found out you had given me the funding, he specifically asked me to bring you that watch. And I noticed he had a file on Lancaster sitting out on his desk."
She let her voice take on a slight note of regret.
"He's away right now, so he couldn't come with me tonight. The company still isn't profitable yet, so this is all I can do for now. Once things turn around, I'll do much better."
Every sentence landed exactly where she intended.
Clifton was looking at Lancaster's files. That meant a partnership between the two was already being considered.
Dominic's smile didn't leave his face for the rest of the evening. He turned the watch over in his hands, running his thumb across the cool, flawless case, already seeing himself at the table with the kind of people he had always wanted to sit beside.
Arabella spoke up beside him, with a tone of fond exasperation directed at Miranda.
"You see? You spent all that time refusing to let me tell your father about the marriage, and now you know who was always on your side. Who else hands over thirty million just like that? That's your father."
"You're right, Mom." Miranda leaned into Arabella's arm with a playful ease, pitching her voice just enough toward Dominic. "I only kept it from Dad because we had that falling out. He always seemed to favor Ariana over me."
She looked at Dominic directly, something bright and trusting in her eyes.
"But now I know. I'm the one he cares about most."
That look, full of admiration and need, hit exactly the right place in Dominic's ego.
He was already clasping the watch onto his wrist.
"That's right," he said with complete confidence. "You always come first."
He told himself that Clifton clearly adored Miranda. A man didn't send his father-in-law a twelve-million-dollar watch otherwise. And if he was reviewing Lancaster's files, a major deal was already in motion.
Dominic's mind was completely consumed by ambition and satisfaction.
Arabella's voice broke through it gently.
"Dominic, I was wrong to keep Miranda's news from you along with her. Come home. Stay."
That night, everything was working in Dominic's favor. A priceless watch on his wrist. A wife and daughter behaving exactly as he felt entitled to expect. And the identity of father-in-law to one of the most powerful heirs in the country.
He was too satisfied to notice anything else, let alone the fact that both women had orchestrated every second of it.
Miranda stayed at the house that night.
At ten o'clock, Arabella came out of the master bathroom and looked at Dominic already settled in the bed.
Her stomach turned.
She thought, grimly, that Christian needed to call soon. She could not stand being in the same room as this man for one more minute than necessary.
Unable to stall any further, she sat down at her vanity and began her skincare routine, opening each bottle with deliberate slowness and applying each step as though she had all the time in the world.
Meanwhile, Miranda was in her own room, checking the time.
She picked up her phone and sent her brother one message.
"Ready."
Sixty seconds later, there was a sharp knock at the master bedroom door.
Before Dominic could say a word, it swung open.
Miranda stood in the doorway, face drained of color, phone clutched in her hand, voice shaking hard enough to crack.
"Dad. Mom. Something happened."
"It's Christian. He was in an accident."