My husband’s pregnant mistress was sitting in my chair at a private banking dinner

Three weeks later, the visitor’s room at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan was cold, gray, and smelled of institutional bleach and stale industrial floor wax.

I sat on one side of a reinforced acrylic glass partition.

I was wearing a simple, impeccably tailored ivory cashmere coat, with no jewelry other than my grandfather’s signet ring on my right pinky finger.

The heavy steel door on the other side clicked open, and Grant was led in by an armed guard.

He looked unrecognizable.

In three weeks, he had lost at least twenty pounds. The sharp, aristocratic cheekbones he had been so proud of now looked hollow and gaunt. His hair was cropped short, showing gray roots he had spent years dyeing. He wore an oversized orange jumpsuit that hung off his frame like a sack. His hands were shackled to a chain around his waist.

He sat down on the metal stool, picked up the black plastic telephone receiver, and pressed it against his ear.

I lifted mine.

“You came,” Grant said, his voice tinny and distant through the intercom wire.

“Victoria told me you refused to sign the final divorce decree unless I saw you in person,” I said, my tone as measured and dispassionate as if I were discussing a shipping manifest. “I have ten minutes, Grant. The helicopter to the Hamptons leaves at three.”

Grant looked down at his shackled hands. The manicured nails were bitten down to the quick.

“I’m facing twelve years, Evie,” he said, his voice breaking. “The federal prosecutors won't offer a plea deal. Victoria Vance blocked every single attempt at mitigation. They want to make an example out of me.”

“You committed twelve federal felonies, Grant,” I said. “You don't need mitigation. You need accountability.”

“Brielle is in a state facility in upstate New York,” Grant continued, ignoring my words, speaking as if to himself. “She was indicted on two counts of accessory to bank fraud. Her family refused to post bail. Her personal trainer fled the state. Nobody visited her. Nobody cares.”

“Did you expect me to feel sorry for her?” I asked. “Or for you?”

Grant looked up, his eyes searching my face through the scratched, bulletproof glass. For the first time in the eight years I had known him, there was no arrogance in his gaze. There was no calculated charm. There was only a terrifying, empty void.

“Did you ever love me, Evie?” he asked, a single tear cutting a clean path through the grime on his cheek. “Or was I just a convenient executive to run your family’s business?”

I looked at the man who had slept beside me for nearly three thousand nights. I remembered our wedding in Newport. I remembered dancing beneath a tent of white roses, believing that we were building something eternal.

“I loved you with my whole heart, Grant,” I said, and the absolute truth of it hung heavily between us. “I gave you my grandfather’s name. I gave you my resources. I gave you my trust. But you didn't want love, Grant. You wanted power. And you were so terrified of being the man who married an heiress that you destroyed yourself trying to prove you were the king.”

Grant closed his eyes, his shoulders shaking as silent, wrenching sobs overtook him. The chains around his waist rattled against the metal frame of the stool.

“I have nothing,” he whispered into the phone. “When I get out... I will be fifty years old. I won't have a penny. I won't have a friend. I won't have a home.”

“You will have exactly what you brought into our marriage, Grant,” I said softly.

I slid the final dissolution decree against the glass. The guard on his side picked up the clipboard, laid it in front of him, and handed him a cheap, plastic-bodied pen.

“Sign the papers, Grant,” I said. “And let me go.”

Grant looked at the signature line. For a long, agonizing minute, the only sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights above us.

Then, with trembling, ruined fingers, Grant Whitaker signed his name for the last time on a Montgomery document.

He didn't look up as the guard took the clipboard away. He dropped the receiver onto the small metal shelf, hung his head, and waited to be led back to his cell.