Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN BESIDE MY HUSBAND
Rebecca Sloan did not ask me to trust her.
I appreciated that immediately.
She led me toward a quiet library off the ballroom while Ethan followed.
Adrian stopped him at the doorway.
“Give them ten minutes.”
Ethan stared at him.
“That is my wife.”
Rebecca gave a humorless laugh.
“That sentence has had a busy evening.”
Ethan looked at me.
I said nothing.
He stayed outside.
That was new.
Inside, Rebecca put her champagne on a side table.
“I owe you an apology.”
“I don’t know you well enough to know whether I want one.”
“Fair.”
She sat.
I remained standing.
“Were you sleeping with him?”
Direct questions had become easier.
Rebecca looked startled.
“No.”
I studied her face.
“No?”
“No.”
“Did you want to?”
She exhaled.
“For about three weeks.”
That hurt differently.
Not betrayal exactly.
Possibility.
“What stopped you?”
“He did.”
That surprised me.
“Ethan?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca looked toward the closed door.
“He told me the timing was wrong.”
I almost laughed.
“How noble.”
“I thought he meant because he was recently separated.”
My stomach dropped.
“Recently what?”
Her face changed.
There.
She finally understood how large the lie had been.
“He told you we were separated.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
Eight.
Not three.
Not a rooftop joke.
Eight months.
Rebecca continued carefully.
“He never said you were dead. He never claimed you were abusive. Nothing dramatic.”
“How considerate.”
“He said the marriage had become more like a friendship.”
I stared at the books behind her.
“That we were living separate lives.”
I looked back.
“We shared a bed eight months ago.”
Rebecca closed her eyes briefly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Did he say why we separated?”
“Ambition.”
I actually laughed.
“Mine or his?”
“Yours.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“He said you had decided to focus on architecture again and that marriage had become limiting for both of you.”
For years, Ethan told me my architecture career was something I had chosen to leave because our life had changed.
Now he was telling strangers my career was why our marriage had ended.
Efficient.
“Did he introduce you publicly as a date?”
“No.”
“Did people assume?”
“Yes.”
“Did he correct them?”
Rebecca looked ashamed.
“Not always.”
Of course.
“How did you meet?”
“Hartwell Equity.”
I frowned.
“I’m on the outside investment committee.”
That explained why Ethan wanted her attention.
Rebecca was not simply a beautiful woman at a rooftop reception.
She had a vote.
She looked toward me.
“Ethan had been trying to position Whitmore Capital for Hartwell investment for almost two years.”
“And being single helped?”
Her expression tightened.
“No.”
That answer mattered.
“This wasn’t some investment strategy?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“I think he liked the version of himself people saw when you weren’t there.”
That sentence landed quietly.
I sat down.
Rebecca continued.
“He was the brilliant founder.”
“No history.”
“No compromise.”
“No person standing beside him who remembered the apartment above the laundromat.”
I stared.
“How do you know about that?”
“He told me.”
Another injury.
He had taken our memories too.
Turned them into charming founder stories with himself as the only character.
Rebecca reached into her clutch.
“Three months ago, after that rooftop reception, he started acting differently.”
“The night I heard him say he was single.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did he know I was there?”
“Not until later.”
“When?”
“He called me the next morning.”
My pulse changed.
“What did he say?”
“He said there might have been a misunderstanding.”
Of course.
“He asked me never to describe him as separated in front of you.”
I almost admired the architecture of the lie.
To Rebecca, I thought we were separated.
To me, she misunderstood.
Different walls.
Same building.
“Did you ask why?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That you were having trouble accepting the marriage was over.”
I stopped breathing.
There it was.
The familiar trick.
Make the person who knows the truth look confused.
Rebecca saw my face.
“I didn’t believe him.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian had already mentioned hiring you for the foundation project.”
That connected another piece.
“If you believed your marriage had ended because you wanted architecture back, you would not need to be protected from hearing that story.”
Exactly.
“So you investigated?”
“I asked questions.”
“And?”
She took out her phone.
“Ethan texted me after our conversation.”
She showed me.
ETHAN:
Naomi and I are working out private issues. I’d appreciate discretion until Hartwell closes.
Rebecca:
Are you divorced?
Ethan:
Not technically.
Rebecca:
Then you are married.
No answer for six hours.
Then:
ETHAN:
On paper.
I read it twice.
On paper.
Seven years.
Cupcakes.
Rent.
Hospital waiting rooms when his mother had surgery.
My salary paying groceries while Whitmore Capital nearly failed.
My nights correcting his decks.
On paper.
“What happened between you after that?”
“I stopped attending anything socially with him.”
“But you stayed on the investment committee.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Rebecca’s face hardened with self-disgust.
“Because I told myself your marriage was none of my business.”
That familiar phrase.
None of my business.
People loved using it when telling the truth would become uncomfortable.
“Then Hartwell due diligence found your name in the old files.”
She nodded.
“And I realized he had not only hidden a wife.”
“He had hidden a contributor.”
“Yes.”
Silence settled.
The reversal should have made me feel better.
Rebecca had not been Ethan’s mistress.
He had not slept with her.
At least not according to anything I knew.
But somehow the truth felt larger.
He had not erased me for one woman.
He had erased me for an audience.
Rebecca reached into her bag again.
“One more thing.”
She handed me a printed message.
Eight months old.
Ethan to Rebecca.
The marriage is basically finished. I just need the Hartwell process completed before I make any major personal changes.
My chest tightened.
“The Hartwell process.”
“Yes.”
“He was waiting until after the investment.”
“Yes.”
Why?
That question stayed with me as we returned to the ballroom.
Ethan stood beside Adrian.
He looked at me.
“What did she tell you?”
I handed him the printout.
His face changed.
“You went through private messages?”
Rebecca answered.
“I gave them to her.”
Ethan looked betrayed.
Interesting.
“Why wait for Hartwell?” I asked.
He said nothing.
“Why did our marriage need to remain intact on paper until the deal closed?”
His jaw tightened.
“Not here.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You used here whenever you needed to be single.”
A few people turned.
“Now here works for me.”
His eyes flashed.
“Whitmore Capital is in the middle of a major financing process.”
“I know.”
“Personal instability can affect confidence.”
I stared.
“So you could not publicly divorce me.”
“No.”
“But you could publicly pretend I never existed.”
His silence answered.
Adrian’s expression hardened.
Then Ethan said something that changed the stakes.
“If Hartwell doesn’t close, Whitmore Capital has maybe six weeks.”
I stopped.
“What does that mean?”
His voice lowered.
“We have a liquidity problem.”
“How bad?”
He looked toward Adrian.
Adrian clearly had not known this.
That was important.
“Ethan,” Adrian said quietly.
“How bad?”
Ethan’s face drained.
“We have a bridge facility due next month.”
“How much?” Rebecca asked.
“Twenty-six million.”
Adrian went completely still.
That number had not been disclosed.
Ethan saw it.
Too late.
“We were refinancing it as part of the Hartwell commitment.”
Adrian’s voice changed.
“Our commitment was never described as rescue capital.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then what is it?”
Ethan had no good answer.
Suddenly my erased marriage was tied to something larger.
A company in trouble.
An investment committee missing material information.
My work inside documents Ethan had certified as his.
And a husband who had apparently been waiting for eighty million dollars before admitting publicly that he had a wife he no longer wanted.
Adrian turned to me.
“Naomi, do you know about the Harbor North acquisition?”
“No.”
Ethan snapped, “She has nothing to do with Harbor North.”
Adrian stared at him.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
Adrian took a thin folder from the inside pocket of his jacket.
He opened it.
There was my diagram again.
The three circles.
Housing.
Transit.
Retail.
This time stamped across a fifty-seven-page acquisition memorandum.
HARBOR NORTH REDEVELOPMENT THESIS.
Adrian looked at me.
“Because Ethan used your framework to justify the acquisition that created the twenty-six-million-dollar problem.”
The room suddenly felt very cold.
The work I had drawn at our kitchen table nine years earlier had not merely helped build Whitmore Capital.
Ethan had used it to make the biggest gamble of his career.
May you like
And apparently—
the gamble was failing.
