Six hundred people watched my husband’s mistress raise a champagne glass and announce that she had won him. Before the night was over,

At eight o’clock that evening, the intercom at the front gate of the Hartwell townhouse buzzed.

I was sitting in the library, reviewing the revised charter for the Hartwell Foundation, when the house manager, Henderson, entered the room with an expression of profound disdain.

“Mrs. Hale,” Henderson said, bowing slightly. “There is a young woman at the gate demanding to speak with you. She refuses to leave, and she has created quite a scene. The security guards were about to physically remove her, but she insisted she had documents you needed to see.”

I closed my leather-bound portfolio. “Sloane Avery.”

“Indeed, madam.”

“Show her to the garden parlor,” I said calmly. “And make sure Mason is in the adjoining room with the security monitors.”

“Very good, madam.”

Five minutes later, I walked into the garden parlor. The room was surrounded by floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the darkened, frost-covered courtyard.

Sloane Avery was standing in the center of the room, looking unrecognizable from the triumphant seductress of twenty-four hours ago. Her red dress was gone, replaced by an oversized trench coat, dark sunglasses, and unwashed hair pulled back into a messy bun. Her eyes were swollen, red-rimmed from crying, and her hands shook violently as she clutched a designer handbag that had seen better days.

When I entered, she whirled around, taking off her sunglasses.

“Eleanor,” she gasped, taking a step toward me.

“Stand right there, Miss Avery,” I said, stopping five paces away. I did not sit down, nor did I invite her to do so. “You have three minutes before the private security detail removes you from my property in handcuffs.”

“You have to call off the banks,” Sloane pleaded, her voice cracking with desperate, raw hysteria. “You don’t understand what he’s doing! Preston came to the West Village apartment two hours ago. He was drunk! He tried to take my passport, he tried to take my grandmother’s jewelry, he screamed that everything was my fault because I took the mic at the gala!”

“It was your fault,” I remarked coolly. “You chose to stand up in front of six hundred people and declare that my husband belonged to you. You wanted an audience, Sloane. You got one.”

“He forced me!” she cried, tears spilling over her cheeks. “He told me that if I didn't announce our relationship publicly, you would find a way to freeze his accounts before the merger closed! He said making it public was the only way to protect me! He used me!”

“Did he force you to steal the Westbridge acquisition models from your employer’s secure server?” I asked quietly.

Sloane froze. The color drained from her face so fast I thought she might faint onto the Persian rug.

“How… how do you know about that?” she whispered.

“I know about Avery Blue Holdings,” I said, stepping closer, my voice dropping to an icy, piercing whisper. “I know about the fourteen million dollars funneled through the Cayman Islands. I know about the twenty-million-dollar finder’s fee promised to you in an offshore contract signed on July 14th. You weren't a victim of Preston’s charm, Sloane. You were his willing accomplice.”

Sloane’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a fish out of water.

“I… I can testify against him,” she stammered, falling to her knees on the marble floor, grasping at the hem of my trousers. “Please, Eleanor. The FBI was at my apartment building. My landlord locked the doors. My bank accounts are frozen. I have forty-two dollars in cash. That’s all I have left! If you testify for me, if you tell the prosecutors I cooperated—”

I stepped back, pulling my hem out of her trembling fingers as if she were a piece of filth swept in from the street.

“You stood before six hundred of my peers, looked me in the eyes, and told me that my husband belonged to you,” I said, looking down at her with unadulterated contempt. “You wanted my husband, Sloane? You have him. You share his bed, you share his debts, and tomorrow, you will share his federal indictment.”

“Eleanor, please!” she sobbed, throwing her hands over her face, shaking uncontrollably on the cold marble floor. “Please don’t destroy my life! I’m only twenty-six!”

“You were old enough to commit securities fraud, Miss Avery,” I replied coldly. “You are old enough to serve the sentence.”

I turned toward the door.

“Henderson,” I called out.

The heavy doors swung open. Two burly security officers stepped into the room, flanked by Henderson.

“Escort Miss Avery off the premises,” I instructed without looking back. “And have the floor disinfected.”

As the guards hauled Sloane to her feet while she screamed and begged into the empty air of the corridor, I felt neither pity nor anger. The storm was coming, and for the first time in eight years, I wasn’t trying to shelter Preston Hale from the rain.