Chapter 4: Five Days Without the Crown
Lucille used the emergency board request to put Rafael on defense.
She did it carefully.
No one accused him of a crime.
No one claimed he had abandoned Emmett.
The argument was about judgment.
A chief executive who overturned a table in front of guests after a family insult might create financial risk.
Katherine could not dismiss that completely.
“You should temporarily delegate day-to-day operations until the board meeting.”
Rafael stared at her.
“You’re recommending I step back?”
“For five days.”
“That gives Lucille what she wants.”
“No.”
Katherine leaned forward.
“It denies her the argument that you refuse oversight.”
Rafael hated it.
Which was usually how he knew Katherine was giving him useful advice.
He appointed his chief financial officer, Daniel Mercer, to handle routine operations until the emergency meeting.
Rafael retained strategic authority.
No large transactions could occur without written board approval.
Lucille immediately called the move an acknowledgment that Rafael had lost control.
Katherine documented the statement.
Meanwhile, Rafael ordered a review of the family foundation Celina managed.
The reason was not revenge.
Celina’s department had paid for the banquet.
If Lucille had planned some kind of board maneuver around the event, Rafael wanted to know whether company resources had supported it.
The preliminary review found nothing explosive.
It did find spending Rafael had already questioned months earlier.
Private drivers charged as charitable outreach.
Luxury hotel rooms labeled donor development.
Thousands in flowers for events with no outside donors.
Celina had always argued that family prestige helped fundraising.
The foundation board tolerated it.
Rafael had recently ordered those expenses reduced.
That gave Celina a motive to dislike his reforms.
Not a motive to target Emmett.
Still, Katherine added it to the timeline.
At home, Rafael had a different problem.
Emmett refused to eat blackberry anything.
Rosalie, his nanny, offered blackberry yogurt one morning without thinking.
The boy pushed the bowl away.
“Bad food.”
Rafael heard him.
He sat down across from his son.
“It isn’t bad.”
“Lucille says.”
“Lucille was wrong.”
Emmett looked skeptical.
Three-year-olds did not revise emotional memories because adults provided corrections.
Rafael asked Theo to remove blackberries from menus for a while.
Not permanently.
Just until food stopped feeling like evidence.
That evening, Rafael walked through the empty garden terrace.
Staff had repaired the damage.
New glasses.
New table.
No trace of blackberry filling remained between the stones.
May you like
He found one tiny purple stain near the step.
For reasons he could not explain, that stain made him angrier than the broken furniture ever had.
