The Brother's Wife Chapter 3

Sophie was three years old when I started paying attention to her. Really paying attention.

She'd learned to recognize when I was in a bad mood. She'd go quiet, her little hands twisting in her dress, her bottom lip trembling as she fought back tears.

"It's okay, Daddy," she'd whisper. "Sophie will be good. Please don't be sad."

The kid thought she was the problem. She thought she was the reason her father—who she believed was me—was always angry.

That realization hit me harder than I expected.

When I picked her up from preschool one afternoon and found her surrounded by four bigger kids, fists raised and tears streaming down her face, something in me snapped.

I was the only one allowed to be mean to her. Nobody else.

I stormed into the principal's office, demanding answers. The ringleader turned out to be the son of Marcus Whitmore, CEO of Whitmore Industries, the largest pharmaceutical company in New England.

The principal tried to smooth things over. "Mr. Bennett, please understand, the Whitmores are important benefactors to this school. Perhaps if we all just—"

I punched Marcus Whitmore in the face right there in the hallway.

Claire spent the next hour apologizing profusely to the man while I stood silent, arms crossed. Watching her bow and scrape made my blood boil in a way I didn't fully understand.

After Whitmore finally left—with a check for his medical expenses in hand—I grabbed Claire's arm.

"Stop apologizing to people like that," I snapped.

She blinked at me, startled. "But James, he could sue us, he could—"

"Then let him try." I pulled Sophie closer, the little girl clinging to my leg. "You want her to stop getting bullied? Either build something big enough that people like Whitmore have to respect you, or accept that I'll handle it my way."

I didn't expect Claire to actually do it.