She Fell in Love With a Worker — Unaware He Was the Millionaire Architect and Owner!
Chapter 10
Thomas Reed agreed to meet them in an old office downtown.
He looked calm.
Almost disappointed.
“You should have stayed away from Eastwood.”
Daniel stared.
“You’re behind the money.”
Thomas sighed.
“Not all of it.”
“Richard?”
“Richard is a fool.”
“Alex?”
“Greedy.”
“Then who?”
Thomas looked at Emma.
“She.”
Emma frowned.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas opened a folder.
Inside were documents about Emma’s father.
She froze.
“My father.”
“He knew about the land before anyone else.”
Emma looked confused.
“He worked at the community center.”
“He also served on a local planning committee.”
Thomas turned to Daniel.
“Your father knew him.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“How?”
“They worked together to prevent developers from taking the neighborhood twenty years ago.”
Emma stared.
“My father never told me.”
“Because he failed.”
Thomas handed her a photograph.
Two men stood together outside the old community center.
Daniel’s father.
Emma’s father.
The same building.
The same oak tree.
The same garden.
Daniel looked at the photograph.
“My father built Sterling Urban Group to finance community projects.”
Thomas nodded.
“He believed architecture could improve lives.”
“Then why did he create a family trust involved in this?”
“Because he knew his company would attract people who wanted the land, not the mission.”
Thomas looked toward the window.
“Your father tried to protect the neighborhood.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“Then why has Eastwood been under threat for years?”
Thomas’s expression became darker.
“Because the people who inherited control stopped caring about his values.”
Daniel stared.
“Who?”
“Alex and Richard.”
“Then why have you been helping them?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I wasn’t.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Trying to stop something worse.”
He placed another file on the table.
Emma opened it.
There were recent transactions.
The shell companies were real.
But the money wasn’t going to Alex.
It was going somewhere else.
A private account held by a development consortium.
Thomas explained that Alex and Richard were being used.
Someone wanted Sterling Urban Group to collapse.
Why?
Because if Daniel lost control of the company, the consortium could acquire it.
Emma frowned.
“Who owns the consortium?”
Thomas looked at Daniel.
“You do.”
Daniel stared.
“What?”
“Indirectly.”
The consortium’s parent company had been secretly buying shares in Sterling Urban Group.
If enough shares were purchased, control would transfer.
Daniel’s enemy wasn’t trying to steal Eastwood.
They were trying to take the entire company.
And the person leading the takeover was the one Daniel least expected.
His mother.
Daniel went pale.
“My mother is dead.”
Thomas said quietly,
“She is.”
“Then what?”
“The trust she created is still active.”
Emma looked confused.
“What does that mean?”
Thomas opened one final document.
The trust’s controlling beneficiary was a private foundation.
Its director was Daniel’s mother.
Daniel stared at the signature.
It had been created two years before her death.
Emma looked at him.
“This doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” Daniel whispered.
“It doesn’t.”
Thomas looked at them.
“That is why you need to find the original trust records.”
“Where?”
Thomas pointed to the community center.
“Under the old library.”
