Chapter 7 - THE BOARD VOTE RAFE HID
Rafe knew because he had voted with the board.
Eleven months earlier, preliminary financial and safety concerns led directors to suspend Aurelia funding. Rafe supported the suspension in the official meeting—then financed the lab privately the next day.
“You told me the board believed in the project,” Greer said.
“I told you funding continued.”
“You let me think institutional review had cleared us.”
“I believed the concerns were financial politics.”
“You made yourself my hidden board.”
Rafe did not argue.
He had protected her from a decision she deserved to know, just as she protected him from her emotional life by revealing only what felt manageable. Their marriage was full of concealed burdens offered as gifts.
At the removal hearing, Celeste presented the private loans as evidence Rafe subordinated shareholder duties to Greer’s project. She also introduced messages in which Rafe told finance staff to “keep Greer away from the board noise.”
One director asked whether Greer knew employees in another division lost planned support while her lab continued. She had not. Rafe redirected money from a canceled executive retreat and vacant positions, not layoffs, but staff still worked without expected hires.
Greer realized private rescue always had a public footprint. Even when no rule was broken, hidden priorities denied affected people the chance to question them.
The phrase sounded paternalistic because it was.
Rafe admitted it. “I thought shielding her was support. It was also a way to avoid conflict at home.”
The board removed him as chief executive pending investigation.
Celeste became interim CEO and immediately approved the biotech sale to Cascadia.
Greer’s injunction request stopped transfer of the orchid for seventy-two hours. Cascadia argued delay would kill the specimen. Their scientists claimed only immediate proprietary treatment could save it.
Greer requested access to observe. Denied.
Then a technician from the independent facility contacted her anonymously. The orchid was not dying. New roots had formed after the saline flush.
Cascadia was lying about urgency.
The technician also said Nolan visited the facility before the sabotage—using Celeste’s badge.
Greer arranged a secure interview. The technician failed to appear.
Her apartment was empty, and Cascadia said no employee by that name existed.
On the same day, leaked photographs showed Greer embracing Nolan outside the growth chamber after saving the orchid.
Headlines called him her lover and framed Rafe’s ultimatum as a betrayed husband’s desperate act.
Strangers analyzed Greer’s body language, wedding photographs, and work clothes. One commentator said a woman who wore her ring in the lab was signaling guilt. Another said Rafe’s tears proved devotion.
Greer stopped reading after discovering a slowed video of her reaching for the handbag. The movement that once felt like private failure had become entertainment.
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Miriam reminded her that public opinion wanted characters, not systems. “Do not let a simplified audience force you into a simplified defense,” she said.
The conspiracy had moved from stealing research to rewriting the marriage publicly.
