Confronting Constance
Chapter 07 - Confronting Constance
Constance Mercer received her son's request for a formal meeting with the specific, practiced composure of a woman who had spent a lifetime managing difficult conversations on her own terms.
She arrived at Richard's office dressed impeccably, seated herself across from her son and his attorney without visible concern, and waited.
"I know about Greg," Richard said. "Everything. The payments, the fabricated evidence against Sarah, the position you gave him afterward as payment. I know all of it."
Constance was quiet a long moment, something shifting behind her carefully maintained expression that Richard recognized, for the first time in his adult life, as genuine calculation rather than maternal concern.
"Everything I did was to protect this family's legacy," she said finally. "Sarah was not the right partner for someone in your position. I made a judgment, and I acted on it."
"You destroyed my marriage," Richard said, voice steady despite the fury building underneath it. "You separated me from my own son for ten years. You fabricated evidence that made the woman I loved believe I didn't trust her enough to choose her over my own mother's prejudice."
"She wasn't suitable," Constance said, though her voice carried considerably less certainty than the words themselves attempted to project. "She came from nothing, Richard. This family's reputation required someone of comparable standing."
"Our family's reputation," Richard said slowly, "is currently built on a lie you told to remove a woman whose only crime was growing up without money. I don't think that's a reputation worth protecting."
Constance's composure cracked slightly. "You don't understand the pressures I was under. The expectations of our social circle, the board's perception of the family's stability."
"I understand perfectly," Richard said. "You valued appearance over your own son's happiness, and you recruited a man willing to help you destroy a marriage in exchange for a career he's since used to steal nearly half a million dollars from this company."
That detail clearly surprised her. "Greg's been stealing."
"For three years, at minimum," Richard confirmed. "Your carefully chosen ally, the man you trusted to help manage your own son's life, has been systematically looting the company you were supposedly trying to protect."
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Constance sat with that revelation, the specific irony of it settling visibly across her face, understanding that the man she'd recruited to protect the family's legacy had instead become one of its most significant threats.
"I want you to know something," Richard said. "I intend to rebuild what you broke. My relationship with Mark, my relationship with Sarah if she's willing, this company's integrity. I intend to do all of it, and I intend to do it without any version of the interference you apparently consider your right to impose."
