Chapter 3 - Rule One
The next morning, I played the perfect wife.
I made coffee. I straightened Adrian’s tie. I kissed his cheek. I smiled when he looked at his phone too often and typed beneath the breakfast table like a man sending little sparks into a hidden fire.
“Long meeting today,” he said.
“Investor prep?”
His eyes flicked up, just once.
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Dad is excited.”
Adrian’s shoulders relaxed.
That relaxation hurt more than suspicion would have. He believed I was still inside the story he had written for me.
When the door closed behind him, I drove straight to my father’s office in the financial district. Quentin did not greet me with an embrace. Not because he was cold. Because he knew if he hugged me first, I might become a daughter before I was ready to become a witness.
He had a notebook open.
“Start at the beginning.”
I sat across from him and repeated every word.
Darling.
When Fallon’s father transfers the two hundred million dollars.
I’ll divorce her.
Fallon trusts people.
Quentin raised her that way.
I’m pregnant.
My father wrote each sentence down without blinking. Only once did his pen pause, at the mention of Kelsey’s pregnancy. Then he underlined the date and asked, “Did you record any of it?”
“No. The call was open. I hung up before I thought.”
“That’s all right. Memory first. Corroboration next.”
He pressed a button on his desk phone.
“Sandra. Now.”
Sandra Scott arrived within fifteen minutes, tailored suit, silver reading glasses, eyes so sharp they made panic feel inefficient. She specialized in corporate and family law, which suddenly mattered more than I wanted it to.
“Fallon,” she said, sitting beside me, “your job today is not to be heartbroken in any way that helps him. Rule one: do not become the hysterical woman he needs to justify his betrayal. Rule two: document everything. Rule three: freeze the money before he smells smoke.”
My father looked at me.
“Those ten million already committed through the family agreement,” he said. “Were they direct from me or routed through you?”
“Through me.”
“Good,” Sandra said. “That gives us leverage.”
By noon, my devices were backed up. My passwords were changed. Two-factor authentication was updated. The bank was notified that any major transaction required my physical signature and Sandra’s office verification. Sandra issued a formal preservation memo to our financial team without naming the affair yet.
Then we found the email.
Adrian to a financial advisor.
Subject blurred in the archive, but the language was visible enough.
Family alignment.
Stability with the heiress.
Enhanced investor confidence through marital continuity.
I read it twice.
May you like
I was not a wife.
I was collateral with blonde hair and a wedding ring.
