Chapter 2 - My grandfather, Henry Whitmore, had been one of its original partners.
But after his death, my stake had been held through layered trusTS.
Aaron knew my family had money.
He had never cared enough to ask how much.
He assumed I was comfortable.
Old Marblehead property.
A few investment accounTS.
Maybe ten million eventually.
Enough to be respectable.
Not enough to matter in his world.
Nathan studied me.
“Does Aaron know Hawthorne has any connection to you?”
“No.”
“Does anyone at Prescott?”
“One person.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
Nathan closed the folder.
“Good.”
I shook my head.
“Not good.”
“Why?”
“Because Hawthorne owns debt.”
Nathan’s expression sharpened.
“What kind of debt?”
I looked toward the windows.
Boston stretched below us.
Then I said the sentence that would eventually destroy everything Aaron believed about his life.
“Prescott Global’s.”
Nathan went completely still.
“How much?”
“Thirty-eight percent of its outstanding private debt exposure is held through funds controlled by Hawthorne.”
“Does Aaron know?”
“He knows Hawthorne’s funds are creditors.
He doesn’t know I’m a beneficial owner.”
Nathan exhaled.
“Jesus.”
“I don’t want to hurt the company.”
“Good.”
“Five hundred employees didn’t cheat on me.”
Nathan nodded.
“That distinction is going to matter.”
“I want a clean divorce.”
“And if Aaron refuses?”
I remembered Jasmine.
The gala photographs.
The retreaTS.
The whispered jokes.
The nights alone.
The smell of unfamiliar perfume on Aaron’s coat.
“Then Aaron gets to discover that I was never trapped in his world.”
The first legal response arrived the following morning.
Aaron wasn’t interested in a clean divorce.
His attorney, Leonard Graves, demanded that I retract my “defamatory” Slack message, issue an apology to Prescott Global employees, and preserve all communications relating to Aaron and Jasmine.
Nathan read it and laughed.
“Defamation requires falsehood.”
I slid my phone across his desk.
There were photographs.
Hotel receipTS.
Credit-card statemenTS.
Messages.
One photograph showed Aaron and Jasmine entering a boutique hotel at 11:42 p.m.
Another showed them leaving at 6:13 a.m.
Nathan raised an eyebrow.
“You hired an investigator?”
“No.”
“Then where did these come from?”
“Someone sent them anonymously.”
That concerned him.
“When?”
“Over the last six weeks.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
The first envelope had appeared beneath my windshield wiper.
The second came through the mail.
The third contained printed photographs.
No return address.
Just evidence.
Nathan frowned.
“Keep everything.”
Aaron came to the house that evening.
He still had his key.
But the locks had been changed.
He pounded on the front door.
“Claire!”
I stood behind it.
My father was upstairs.
My mother was in the kitchen.
Nathan had told me not to engage.
Aaron hit the door again.
“Open the damn door!”
I did.
But I left the security chain attached.
His face was red.
“Are you insane?”
“Hello, Aaron.”
“You sent my clothes to my office.”
“Yes.”
“You posted about my private life to five hundred employees.”
“Our private life, apparently.”
His jaw tightened.
“You’ve made me a joke.”
“No, Aaron.”
I looked directly at him.
“I just stopped helping you hide the punchline.”
His expression hardened.
“Jasmine and I are colleagues.”
“Of course.”
“You have no proof of anything.”
“I have hotel receipTS.”
Silence.
“A private investigator photographed you leaving the Lennox with her.”
His face changed.
That was enough.
I hadn’t actually hired the investigator.
But Aaron didn’t know that.
“You had me followed?”
“Interesting that that’s the part upsetting you.”
“Claire, open the door.”
“No.”
“This is my house.”
There it was.
I almost smiled.
“No, it isn’t.”
“What?”
“The deed is mine.”
“We’re married.”
“The property was transferred to me two years before we married.”
His confidence flickered.
“This is ridiculous.”
“You’ll receive the paperwork.”
“Do you understand what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
“You’re throwing away everything.”
I stared at the man I had once planned to grow old beside.
Then I finally understood something.
Aaron genuinely believed my marriage to him was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
He believed losing him was punishment.
“Goodnight, Aaron.”
I started closing the door.
He stopped me.
“Jasmine means nothing.”
That hurt more than I expected.
Not because I believed him.
Because if she meant nothing, then he had destroyed me for nothing.
I swallowed.
“You don’t get to use that as a defense.”
His eyes lowered.
“Claire…”
“You didn’t betray me because you loved someone else.
You betrayed me because you thought I’d stay.”
Then I closed the door.
Three days later, Jasmine contacted me.
I almost deleted the message.
We need to talk.
Aaron hasn’t told you everything.
I stared at it for several minutes.
Nathan advised against meeting alone.
So we chose a hotel restaurant in Back Bay.
Jasmine arrived twenty minutes early.
She was thirty-one.
Beautiful.
Elegant.
Controlled.
The kind of woman I’d spent two years comparing myself against.
She stood when I approached.
“Claire.”
“Jasmine.”
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I nearly didn’t.”
We sat.
She looked exhausted.
That surprised me.
“I owe you an apology.”
“Yes.”
She flinched.
Good.
“I never wanted—”
“Don’t say you never wanted to hurt me.”
She looked down.
“Okay.”
“Because you knew I existed.”
“Yes.”
“You came to my home.”
“Yes.”
“You drank my wine.”
Her face reddened.
“Yes.”
“You stood beside me at the Prescott Foundation gala while wearing earrings my husband bought you.”
Her eyes snapped upward.
“You knew?”
“I noticed the charge.”
Silence.
Then Jasmine whispered, “I’m sorry.”
I waited.
“But Aaron isn’t the reason I asked you here.”
“What is?”
She slid a flash drive across the table.
I didn’t touch it.
“What is that?”
“Prescott Global financial records.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why are you giving them to me?”
“Because Aaron thinks you’re leaving because of me.”
“I am leaving because of him.”
“I know.”
She leaned closer.
“But your divorce has created a problem he wasn’t expecting.”
“What problem?”
“The board.”
I stared at her.
Jasmine’s voice dropped.
“Prescott Global is in worse condition than anyone outside senior management knows.”
I felt cold.
“How bad?”
“Very.”
“How?”
“Aaron’s father built the company aggressively.
Aaron expanded even faster.
Acquisitions.
Debt.
Leverage.”
“I know that.”
“You don’t know the rest.”
She tapped the drive.
“Somebody has been moving liabilities between subsidiaries to make leverage ratios look healthier before lender reviews.”
My pulse changed.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why come to me?”
May you like
“Because Aaron discovered it six months ago.”
“And?”
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