Chapter 3 - The Mistress’s Entitlement
The decline notice printed from the POS terminal at Neiman Marcus on Michigan Avenue with a loud, mechanical rip.
Marissa stared at the sliver of paper, her face burning under her heavy contour makeup. The sales associate, a polished woman who had personally served Marissa three glasses of complimentary prosecco during the two-hour private fitting, looked down at the receipt with professional sympathy that felt like a slap.
"I’m so sorry, Ms. Cole," the associate said softly. "The Ember & Vine corporate master account came back as 'Card Suspended by Issuer.' Do you have another method of payment for the shoes and the leather trench?"
A line of wealthy shoppers behind her pretended not to listen, their eyes glancing sideways at the two thousand four hundred dollar balance glowing on the register screen.
Marissa snatched her black American Express card off the marble counter. "Try it again. Your machine is broken. Marcus Vance personally authorized this account."
"I tried twice, ma'am. It’s an administrative hold."
Marissa didn't apologize. She didn't offer a personal debit card because she knew—with a sudden, sickening knot in her stomach—that her personal account had a balance of $314.12. Everything else had been funneled into luxury clothes, designer bags, and weekend trips, secure in the knowledge that on the fifteenth of every month, direct deposits labeled *E&V Administrative Services* and *Tessa Morgan Consulting* would replenish her lifestyle.
She grabbed her handbag, left the designer items on the counter, and stormed out onto Michigan Avenue into the biting wind.
Her phone rang. It was Marcus.
"Where are you?" she demanded, stepping under the awning of the Drake Hotel to escape the rain. "My card just bounced at Neiman Marcus! Marcus, what the hell is happening? The building manager at the Chandler just left a voice message saying our lease payment failed! The garage valet wouldn't release my Porsche this morning because the company fleet account didn't clear!"
Silence met her on the other end of the line, followed by the heavy, ragged breathing of a man who was unraveling.
"Marcus?" she snapped.
"She froze everything, Marissa," Marcus whispered. He sounded like he was sitting in a car, the background noise filled with traffic hum. "The operating accounts. The secondary lines. The Lakeview account has a judicial hold on it. I’m at a motel near O’Hare."
"A motel?" Marissa screeched, completely forgetting her cultivated, breathy socialite accent. "Are you insane? You told me she was a doormat! You told me she was an insecure housewife who would take a settlement and disappear to a cottage in Maine! You promised me Nashville!"
"Listen to me!" Marcus snarled, his temper breaking. "Rachel Sloan filed an emergency motion! They have the payroll logs! They have your sister’s name! If Tessa gets subpoenaed, she’ll fold in five minutes! Do you understand what that means? That’s not a divorce dispute, Marissa—that’s state prison!"
Marissa lowered the phone, her breath coming in ragged white plumes in the autumn cold.
Fear, cold and sharp, pierced through her vanity. If the company went down, if Marcus went down, she wasn't just losing a luxury apartment and a Porsche. She was facing criminal exposure. Marcus had made her sign those Lakeview invoices. He had told her it was standard corporate tax management, that every wealthy CEO did it.
*She did this,* Marissa thought, her terror instantly mutating into incandescent rage. *That boring, mousey woman who sat at brunch while Marcus ran the world. She’s trying to destroy me.*
Forty minutes later, Marissa bypassed the front security desk at Ember & Vine’s River North corporate offices. The security guard was a new temp who didn't recognize her, and she flashed an old employee badge with enough brisk authority to make him buzz the glass turnstile.
She marched straight down the carpeted hallway toward the corner executive suite.
I was sitting behind the massive walnut desk that had once belonged exclusively to Marcus. Beside me, an open box of files was being cataloged by Nora. On my screen was an interactive org chart of our Nashville expansion partners.
The double doors flew open with a bang.
"You think you’re so smart, don't you?" Marissa screamed, slamming her designer handbag onto the middle of my desk.
Nora jumped up from her chair, reaching for the desk phone. "I’m calling building security—"
"Leave the phone, Nora," I said calmly, without looking up from my monitor. I typed one more keystroke, saved the document, and folded my hands neatly across the desk blotter. "Let Ms. Cole speak. We’re billing her sister’s consulting account two hundred dollars an hour; we might as well get some live entertainment."
Marissa’s eyes were wild, her expensive blowout whipped into a frantic mess by the wind outside. "You think you can just turn off my life? You think you can cancel my lease, freeze my car, and leave me with nothing? Marcus promised me that apartment! He promised me that partnership!"
"Marcus promised you property that didn't belong to him," I said, looking her up and down. Up close, without the flattering lighting of Sunday brunch or the Hilton ballroom, she looked fragile, terrified, and painfully young. "You sat six feet away from me at brunch and bragged that my husband was paying for your entire existence. You wanted an audience, Marissa. You wanted me to know that you had taken my husband."
"He came to me!" she yelled, her voice echoing down the executive corridor. "He was miserable with you! He said you were a cold, bloodless machine who cared more about inventory turnover than passion! He loved me!"
"If he loved you," I replied evenly, "he wouldn't have put your sister’s banking information on a fraudulent vendor profile to launder money out of my company. If he loved you, he wouldn't have made you the paper officer of Lakeview Strategic Consulting—making you personally liable for two hundred and twenty thousand dollars in tax evasion."
Marissa froze. The color drained from her lips. "What... what did you say?"
"You didn't read what you signed, did you?" I asked, tilting my head. "Marcus told you that Lakeview was an LLC created to hold your private bonuses. But he didn't list himself as the managing member. He listed you. And he had you execute cross-collateralization agreements with our commercial lender."
I pulled a single sheet of paper from the top drawer and slid it toward her.
"When Marcus took a three-million-dollar preliminary bridge loan for the Nashville project from Julian Thorne’s investment vehicle," I explained, "he backed the initial performance deposit with Lakeview’s corporate assets. Assets that don't exist. Which means Julian Thorne’s lawyers aren't suing Marcus for that breach. They’re suing you."
Marissa stared at the paper. Her hands began to shake violently. "No... no, Marcus said... he said Julian Thorne was his close friend. He said they were meeting in Nashville tonight at the Hermitage Hotel to finalize the private buyout."
I paused. My eyes met Nora’s.
"Tonight?" I asked softly.
Marissa clamped her mouth shut, realizing too late that her desperation had spilled the one piece of information Marcus had kept off the corporate calendar.
"He left for the airport an hour ago," Marissa blurted out, her defense crumbling into tears of absolute panic. "He said... he said if he could get Julian to sign the revised development agreement directly with Southern Crest, your injunction wouldn't matter because the capital would be moved out of Illinois jurisdiction! He told me to pack my things and meet him in Tennessee tomorrow!"
I stood up from behind the desk, took my coat from the brass coat tree in the corner, and picked up my briefcase.
"Nora," I said, slipping my arms into the cashmere sleeves. "Book three seats on the four-fifteen flight to Nashville. Call Rachel. Tell her to bring the original signature cards from 2009."
I turned back to Marissa, who was standing in the center of the office, sobbing silently over her ruined makeup.
May you like
"Take your bag, Ms. Cole," I said, walking past her toward the door. "And if I were you, I would find an attorney who accepts public defender rates. Because by midnight, Marcus Vance won't even have enough money to buy you a bus ticket out of this city."
***
