Chapter 4 - The Other Woman's Ledger
Midnight found me sitting in the quiet lounge of the Westgate Hotel, hours after the gala had imploded. The room was dark, save for the amber table lamp illuminating two untouched glasses of sparkling water.
The door opened, and a woman slid into the booth opposite me.
She wore an oversized trench coat, dark sunglasses pushed up onto her hair, and zero makeup. Without the glamour and high-fashion armor of the Azure Palms resort, Sloane Bennett looked exhausted, humiliated, and raw.
“I didn't think you’d come,” I said.
Sloane gave a dry, humorless laugh, reaching into her leather tote bag. “When Charles Bennett tells his daughter she either cleans up her mess or loses her trust fund, she shows up.” She paused, looking down at the table. “And... because I owe you an apology. Not that you care to hear it.”
“I don't,” I said honestly. “You knew he was married, Sloane. Don't play the innocent victim.”
“I didn't know he was sleeping with you,” she snapped back, a flash of genuine anger surfacing. “He told me you had an arrangement! He said you were living your own life, seeing other people, and that you two only stayed legally married for tax incentives until the company went public! He swore on his father’s grave that you hadn't shared a bed in two years!”
She stopped, taking a jagged breath, her hands shaking slightly.
“I know how pathetic that sounds,” Sloane whispered. “I was thirty-one, successful, and I let a charming sociopath feed my ego. He told me I was his muse. He told me I was the partner he always deserved. He made me feel like we were conquering the world together.”
“He told me the same thing twelve years ago,” I replied softly. “He’s very good at finding women with resources and making them feel like saviors.”
Sloane reached into her bag and pulled out a heavy black leather notebook and a thumb drive. She slid them across the table toward me.
“What is this?” I asked.
“His offshore accounts,” Sloane said. “He used my private Wi-Fi network in Phoenix to make wire transfers. He didn't know that my father’s family office monitors all data traffic routed through our family accounts. Landon thought he was being clever, funneling two million dollars out of Apex into an account in the Cayman Islands under the name ‘HL Marine.’”
I looked at the thumb drive. “HL Marine?”
“He told me it stood for 'Horizon Logistics,'” Sloane said, her mouth twisting in disgust. “It didn't, did it? It stood for Harper Linwood.”
The breath caught in my throat. “He was setting me up.”
“Yes,” Sloane confirmed. “If the SEC or his board ever caught on to the embezzlement, the paper trail pointed entirely to an entity created using your maiden initials and your grandfather’s old corporate registration codes. He was going to frame you for the missing funds, file for an emergency annulment on fraud grounds, and walk away with both the buyout and the company.”
A cold dread spread through my veins. The man I had loved hadn't just cheated on me. He hadn't just stolen from me. He had calculated a path that would have sent me to federal prison so he could live in a beachfront penthouse with another woman.
“Why are you giving this to me?” I asked, looking up into Sloane’s eyes.
“Because he made a fool of me,” she said, her voice turning to pure ice. “He used my family’s name. He treated me like a pawn in his cheap, greedy little game. My father is going to crush him commercially. But you... Harper, you have the legal right to strip him down to nothing. Make sure he never gets back up.”
I picked up the black notebook and the drive, closing my fingers tightly around them.
May you like
“He won't,” I promised.
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