Chapter 3 - THE FILE WITH MY NAME ON IT
I kept smiling.
That was the strange thing about public humiliation.
Sometimes your body continued performing long after your mind stopped cooperating.
I smiled for photographers.
I hugged Celeste.
I nodded when editors shouted questions.
Inside, I heard only one sentence.
Adrian tried to sell my investors your designs.
Backstage, I grabbed Celeste’s arm.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
She closed the dressing-room door.
Her lawyer, Naomi Chen, stood inside with a laptop.
Adrian came through the door before Celeste could speak.
“Claire.”
Naomi stepped between us.
“This conversation is private.”
“I’m her husband.”
Celeste laughed once.
“No. Right now, you’re a legal problem.”
Adrian looked at me.
“Come home.”
“No.”
His eyes sharpened.
“We need to talk.”
“We are talking.”
“Alone.”
“No.”
It was amazing how powerful that word felt after years of avoiding it.
No.
One syllable.
A locked door.
Naomi opened the laptop.
“Mr. Vale, yesterday morning you sent a proposal to two Moreau Global investors.”
Adrian’s face didn’t change.
“I send proposals every day.”
“This one included proprietary design material from the RETURN collection.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Naomi turned the screen around.
My sketch.
My mother’s green coat.
My original handwriting.
My initials in the corner.
CL.
Except beside it was a new title.
HART HOUSE — PRIVATE CONCEPT SERIES.
I stared.
Vanessa’s last name.
Hart.
I looked at Adrian.
“You put her name on my work?”
He shook his head.
“This isn’t what it looks like.”
Celeste folded her arms.
“What does it look like?”
“A preliminary deck.”
“With stolen designs?”
“They were in my home.”
I felt something in me go very still.
“What?”
Adrian turned toward me.
“Claire, we’re married. You left sketches all over the house.”
Naomi’s voice cut in.
“Marriage does not transfer intellectual-property rights.”
Adrian ignored her.
“You weren’t doing anything with them.”
Celeste stepped forward.
“They’re the foundation of a collection launching tonight.”
He finally looked uncertain.
Then the door opened.
Vanessa walked in.
She had changed seats, but apparently not attitudes.
“Adrian, reporters are asking—”
She stopped when she saw me.
Naomi closed the laptop.
Vanessa looked from face to face.
“What?”
I pointed at the screen.
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“Did you know Adrian was putting your name on my designs?”
Vanessa stared at the sketch.
For the first time all night, her reaction looked real.
“What is that?”
Adrian snapped, “Vanessa, go.”
She looked at him.
“You told me those were yours.”
Nobody moved.
Adrian’s face changed.
Vanessa took a step back.
“You told me you created the concept.”
I actually laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because somehow he had lied to both of us differently.
He told Vanessa he was an artist.
He told me my art was a hobby.
Naomi clicked another file.
“Mr. Vale, there’s more.”
A spreadsheet appeared.
Transfers.
Licensing projections.
Equity percentages.
I leaned closer.
One line was highlighted.
VALE CREATIVE HOLDINGS.
Forty percent proposed ownership.
Vanessa Hart: ten percent.
Adrian Vale: thirty percent.
My name appeared nowhere.
I looked at him.
“You were going to sell my work and give your mistress equity?”
Vanessa’s face went white.
“Ten percent?”
Adrian closed his eyes.
That was almost funny too.
Even his mistress had just learned she was being cheated.
Celeste turned to Naomi.
“Show Claire the transfer.”
Naomi hesitated.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
The screen changed.
A bank record.
Three transfers.
From an account I recognized.
Our joint investment account.
$180,000.
$250,000.
$410,000.
Total: $840,000.
Recipient:
VALE CREATIVE HOLDINGS LLC.
My skin went cold.
“That account had my inheritance in it.”
Adrian finally spoke.
“It was an investment.”
“You moved eight hundred and forty thousand dollars without telling me?”
“It’s marital money.”
“No,” Naomi said. “Not all of it.”
Adrian glared at her.
I barely heard them.
Because I was looking at the transaction dates.
The first transfer happened six months ago.
The exact week Adrian told me our investment portfolio had dropped because of “market volatility.”
He hadn’t lost my money.
He had moved it.
Then Naomi clicked one final document.
A signature appeared at the bottom.
CLAIRE VALE.
My signature.
Except I had never signed it.
I whispered, “That’s forged.”
May you like
Adrian said nothing.
And suddenly I understood why my husband had wanted me to go home so badly.
