One Call From the Marble Floor

Chapter 05 - Put Me On Speaker

Lena pressed the speaker icon with a trembling thumb.

Mason Carter’s voice entered the penthouse without raising itself.

“Grant,” he said.

Grant stared at his ringing phone as if it had become an explosive device. “Mr. Carter, I can explain.”

“You will explain later. First, step away from my daughter.”

Sienna’s hand rose to her mouth.

Grant looked down at Lena. For one terrible second, anger returned—not at what he had done, but at the fact that she had possessed power without reporting it to him.

“Your daughter?”

Lena closed her eyes.

Mason answered, “Helena Carter. My only child. The woman you married under her mother’s name because she hoped to be loved without mine.”

Grant’s face emptied.

The gala downstairs, the promotion, the board, the forged transfer, the penthouse—all of it rearranged around a fact he could not bully into disappearing.

He crouched slightly, suddenly gentle. “Lena, why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked at his hand and recoiled before he touched her.

That reflex traveled through the speaker as silence.

Mason heard it.

“Security is in the elevator,” he said. “My attorney is with them. Grant, you will not touch her, the phone, the papers, or the elevator controls.”

Grant’s eyes moved toward the foyer.

“How did you—”

“The penthouse is owned by the Bennett-Carter Trust,” Mason said. “You have been living in my daughter’s property while telling her she had no claim to it.”

Sienna slowly stepped away from Grant.

He noticed. “Don’t.”

It was the wrong command.

Sienna’s fear became anger. “You told me this was yours.”

“Not now.”

“You told me she signed everything.”

Lena reached for the forged page near the table. Sienna moved first, picked it up carefully, and placed it beyond Grant’s reach.

“I saw him shove her,” she said toward the phone.

Grant’s head snapped around.

Mason paused.

“State your name.”

“Sienna Vale.”