Chapter 9 - The Second Woman
By Thursday morning, strangers online were calling me abusive.
The wedding video showed Ethan striking me first.
It did not matter to everyone.
Vale Meridian’s public-relations team released carefully edited clips of me throwing soup and slapping Ethan back.
Context became a battlefield.
Then somebody leaked that my mother had accepted eighty thousand dollars from the Vale family in 1999.
“Former employee took hush money, daughter now demands millions,” one headline read.
Margaret cried when she saw it.
I didn’t.
I was too angry.
Daniel tracked the leak to information contained in Victoria’s settlement file.
Maya added retaliation and defamation issues to our growing legal strategy.
But none of that solved payroll.
I sold a small investment account.
Delayed my own salary.
Negotiated payment extensions with vendors.
Then Nina walked into my office holding her phone.
“You need to see this.”
It was a photograph.
Ethan leaving a Beacon Hill townhouse at six in the morning.
Beside him was Sabrina.
I stared.
“No.”
Nina said nothing.
The image was six months old.
Another appeared.
Ethan and Sabrina kissing inside a car.
Four months before the wedding.
When I confronted Sabrina, she did not deny it.
We met in Maya’s office.
“How long?” I asked.
Sabrina stared at the carpet.
“Off and on for three years.”
Three years.
Before me.
During me.
All of me.
“You introduced me to your boyfriend?”
Her face crumpled.
“He ended things before your first date.”
“And resumed?”
“Later.”
“When?”
Silence.
“Tell me.”
“After your engagement.”
I stood.
Daniel moved toward me, perhaps afraid I would throw something.
I didn’t.
I had already given the Vale family enough footage.
“Did he love you?”
Sabrina wiped her face.
“I thought he did.”
“Did he promise to leave me?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
Maya asked, “Did Victoria know about the relationship?”
Sabrina laughed bitterly.
“Victoria knows everything about Ethan.”
“Did she approve?”
“She didn’t care as long as Claire signed.”
I flinched at hearing my name spoken as an objective.
Sabrina continued.
“When Ethan started hesitating, Victoria used me to push him.”
“Hesitating about what?”
“The marriage.”
I looked at her.
“He wanted to call it off?”
“Twice.”
That should have comforted me.
Instead, it made things worse.
“Why?”
Sabrina looked directly at me.
“Because he actually fell in love with you.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“He did.”
“No. Don’t give him that.”
“I’m not defending him.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I watched him change. At first you were strategy. Then he stopped talking about Harbor Street around you. He asked Victoria to pursue another parcel configuration.”
“What happened?”
“She refused.”
“And he married me anyway.”
“Yes.”
“While sleeping with you.”
Her eyes closed.
“Yes.”
There was no version of his love I wanted anymore.
Maya brought us back to the documents.
“Did Ethan personally ask you to notarize the guaranty?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know Claire was not present?”
“Yes.”
“Did he say she had authorized her signature?”
Sabrina hesitated.
“He said Victoria had handled it.”
The room stilled.
Daniel asked, “What exactly?”
“He gave me the guaranty already signed and said, ‘Mom got Claire’s authorization. Stamp it.’”
Victoria.
A new possibility opened.
“What device did Victoria have access to?” Maya asked.
“My electronic signature,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
I remembered.
Three months earlier, Victoria’s charity office had prepared place cards and donor letters for a gala where I was honorary design chair.
I had emailed her assistant a transparent image of my signature for approved thank-you letters.
A perfect digital signature file.
I felt physically ill.
“They had my signature.”
Daniel asked Sabrina, “Were the other forged documents signed the same way?”
“Yes.”
“Did Ethan know?”
“I assumed he did.”
“Assumption isn’t enough.”
“I know.”
My phone rang.
Agent Holt.
“We obtained records from Atlantic Republic,” she said. “There’s something you need to know.”
“What?”
“The lender received a certification stating you personally reaffirmed the guaranty by video conference.”
“I never did.”
“We know.”
“How?”
“The meeting recording still exists.”
Hope surged.
“Then that proves it.”
“Not quite.”
“Why?”
“Because someone appears on camera.”
My blood went cold.
“What do you mean?”
“A woman is on the call claiming to be you.”
Nobody in the room moved.
I whispered, “Who?”
“We’re determining that.”
May you like
Then Holt added:
“Whoever she was, Ethan introduced her to the bank as his fiancée, Claire Morgan.”
