Chapter 2 - SIX MONTHS EARLIER
Six months before that gala, Marcus ended our marriage by email.
I was sitting beside my aunt’s hospital bed when my phone buzzed.
Aunt Helen had stage-four pancreatic cancer.
She had maybe days left.
Marcus knew that.
He also knew I hadn’t slept more than three hours a night for nearly two weeks.
His email had a subject line that said:
WE NEED TO MOVE FORWARD.
I opened it expecting something about her condition.
Instead, I found eleven paragraphs explaining why our marriage had “run its course.”
No phone call.
No warning.
No conversation.
Just corporate language from a man who had spent fifteen years sleeping beside me.
At the bottom, he wrote:
I believe separation is healthiest for both of us.
I stared at those words until the screen blurred.
Aunt Helen opened her eyes.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
She gave me the look she had given me since I was ten years old.
“Rebecca.”
I handed her the phone.
She read the first few lines.
Then looked at me.
“That coward.”
I laughed.
Then I cried.
I cried so hard I had to cover my mouth.
Helen reached for my hand.
“He waited until you were here.”
“I know.”
“He waited until you couldn’t fight back.”
“I know.”
She squeezed my fingers.
“Then don’t fight the way he expects.”
I looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
She gave me a tired smile.
“Marcus has always been loud when he’s scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“You.”
I almost laughed again.
But Helen didn’t.
She knew things about Marcus.
Things I had spent years pretending not to see.
The truth was, Marcus had never built his success alone.
When we married, he was working from a rented office above a dentist.
His first investor came through me.
His first manufacturing contact came through Helen.
His first major client came from a former professor of mine.
Even the patent attorney who saved his company during its first lawsuit had been someone I introduced him to.
But somewhere along the way, “we built this” became “I built this.”
Then “I built this” became “Rebecca never contributed anything.”
And I let it happen.
I thought love meant not keeping score.
Marcus thought it meant I had forgotten the score entirely.
Three days after his email, Helen died.
At her funeral, Harrison Cole walked up to me.
I had met him years earlier through Helen.
He hugged me once.
Then he said something unexpected.
“Your aunt left instructions.”
I frowned.
“What kind of instructions?”
He handed me a business card.
“My office. Monday morning. Nine.”
I stared at it.
“Harrison, I’m getting divorced.”
“I know.”
“I’m not exactly thinking about business right now.”
“You will be.”
He started to walk away.
Then turned back.
“And Rebecca?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t sign anything Marcus sends you.”
That night, I went home and found divorce papers waiting on the kitchen counter.
Marcus had already signed them.
Beside the papers was a handwritten note.
Please don’t make this ugly.
I stood there for a long time.
Then I noticed one page clipped near the back.
A financial disclosure.
May you like
And one number on it made my blood run cold.
Because Marcus had hidden almost twelve million dollars.
