Chapter 2 - The Flight to Toronto
The black Range Rover cut through the heavy South Carolina rain, its tires humming against the wet asphalt of the highway leading toward Charleston Executive Airport.
Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was quiet, saved only by the soft purr of the engine and the rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers. Amara sat in the passenger seat, staring out at the grey blur of pine trees. In her lap, she held a warm ceramic mug of tea that Chef Lawson had rushed out to hand her before the car left the driveway.
Everett drove with steady, quiet focus. Every few minutes, his eyes flicked to the side, checking on the quiet woman beside him.
Her hands were still shaking slightly around the mug.
“Daniel is twenty?” Everett asked gently, breaking the long silence.
Amara swallowed, turning her head slightly toward him. “Yes. He’s in his second year of engineering at the University of Toronto. He’s... he’s very smart, but he’s quiet. He relied on our mother for everything.” Her voice caught in her throat. “He was holding her hand when she stopped breathing. He called me from the room.”
Everett’s jaw tightened. He remembered the night his own father died five years ago. He remembered the cold, clinical feel of the hospital room, the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor slowing to a flatline, and the crushing realization that he was suddenly responsible for an entire legacy alone.
“He won’t be alone much longer,” Everett said quietly. “We’ll be in Atlanta in forty-five minutes once we board the jet. My legal team will have the emergency passport stamped by eight-thirty tomorrow morning, and we’ll fly directly into Toronto Pearson by noon.”
Amara looked at him, confusion mixing with her grief. “We will fly?”
Everett glanced at her. “You didn’t think I was letting you go alone, did you?”
“Mr. Hale... Everett,” Amara corrected herself quickly. “You don't have to do this. Your company, your wedding arrangements... Camille is right about the press. If you leave the state now, it will cause a scandal.”
“Let it,” Everett said without a moment’s hesitation. “Camille’s father can release every press statement he wants. I don't care about the social gossip of Charleston, Amara. I care about doing what is right. For three years, you’ve kept my life running smoothly without asking for a single thing in return. The least I can do is make sure you aren't alone when you lay your mother to rest.”
Amara bit her lower lip, turning her face toward the window to hide the fresh tears filling her eyes.
For three years, she had worked at the Hale estate, keeping her head down, enduring Camille’s subtle microaggressions, her impossible demands, and her constant condescension. She had done it because the salary allowed her to pay for her mother’s cancer treatments in Canada and cover Daniel’s university tuition. She had convinced herself that rich people were all the same—transactional, cold, and self-absorbed.
She had been wrong about Everett Hale.
Thirty minutes later, the Range Rover pulled directly onto the tarmac at Charleston Executive Airport. A sleek, white Gulfstream G550 sat waiting, its turbine engines already whining softly as the flight crew prepared for departure.
Claire Walsh was waiting by the airstairs, holding a leather folder.
“Mr. Hale,” Claire said, handing him the documents as they approached. “I’ve spoken with the Director of the Passport Agency in Atlanta. Because of your personal guarantee and the diplomatic ties of the Hale Foundation, they have opened an after-hours emergency window for us at eight tomorrow morning. Everything is cleared.”
“Thank you, Claire,” Everett said, taking the folder. “Have you notified the staff at the estate?”
Claire hesitated, her eyes flickering toward Amara before returning to Everett. “Ms. Sterling left the estate twenty minutes after you did. She was furious. She has called a family meeting with her father, Richard Sterling, and her lawyers at the Sterling Tower downtown.”
“Let them meet,” Everett said coldly. “Tell security to change the security codes on the front gate. Camille is not permitted on the property without my written authorization.”
Claire nodded without flinching. “Understood, sir.”
Everett turned to Amara, extending his hand to guide her up the airstairs. “Ready?”
Amara looked at the sleek jet, then at the man standing beside her in the rain, holding an umbrella over her head while letting his own shoulder get soaked.
“Ready,” she whispered.
Meanwhile, in the top-floor boardroom of the Sterling Group building in downtown Charleston, a very different meeting was taking place.
Camille Sterling sat at the long glass conference table, a glass of scotch in her hand, her eyes red with fury. Across from her sat her father, Richard Sterling, a formidable, white-haired developer whose fortune was built on aggressive corporate takeovers and high-stakes real estate deals.
“He walked out on you?” Richard demanded, slamming his thick palm onto the table. “Six days before a four-hundred-guest wedding? Over a servant?!”
“She isn't just a servant to him, Dad!” Camille shouted, her voice shrill with bitterness. “You should have seen the way he looked at her! He looked at her like she was made of glass! He talked to me as if I were dirt on his shoes!”
Richard Sterling’s eyes narrowed into dark slits. “Everett Hale thinks he can humiliate the Sterling family and walk away clean? He owes my firm forty million dollars in bridge loans for his downtown housing project. If he doesn't walk down that aisle on Saturday, I will call those loans due immediately. I’ll bankrupt his foundation before the month is over.”
“No,” Camille said, her expression turning vicious as a cold idea took root in her mind. “Don't call the loans yet. That’s too easy. He wants to play the hero for his precious little housekeeper? Let’s see how heroically he acts when the world finds out what she really is.”
Richard raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”
Camille pulled her phone out, opening an encrypted messaging app. “Amara Bennett’s father died in prison ten years ago for corporate embezzlement in Canada. Her mother was under investigation for fraud before she fled to Toronto. Everett doesn't know any of this because he never checked her background—he just hired her because his old man liked her mother.”
May you like
Camille smiled—a cruel, sharp smile that showed all her teeth.
“If Everett wants to fly to Canada with her,” Camille whispered, “I’m going to make sure the press follows every step of their little trip. By tomorrow morning, the entire country will know that Everett Hale abandoned his high-society wedding to harbor the daughter of a convicted fraudster.”
