Chapter 4 - Chloe’s Version of Paradise
I expected to hate Chloe Hart.
That would have been easier.
Hate is clean.
It gives betrayal a face.
But when Chloe walked into Rachel’s office the next morning, she looked nothing like the woman from the St. Lucia photographs.
No red dress.
No champagne.
No beach.
She wore black trousers and a white blouse.
Her hair was pulled back.
She looked exhausted.
And frightened.
She saw me and stopped.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “I’m sorry.”
I hated that the apology sounded sincere.
I hated it even more because part of me wanted it to be fake.
Rachel closed the door.
Daniel remained outside.
This meeting was mine.
Chloe sat across from me.
“I didn’t know you were still together.”
I looked at her.
“You knew I was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“You knew we were married.”
“Yes.”
Her face flushed.
“Julian told me you were separated privately.”
“When?”
“February.”
Six months earlier.
“He said you were staying together publicly until after the baby was born.”
My hands tightened in my lap.
“Why?”
“He said your families were conservative about appearances.”
I almost laughed.
“My family hadn’t spoken to me in eight years.”
Chloe’s face changed.
“He said you spent weekends in Connecticut.”
“No.”
“He said you were seeing someone.”
“No.”
She closed her eyes.
“God.”
I said nothing.
She continued.
“He told me you both agreed the marriage was over.”
“Did he tell you I knew about you?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“I understand that now.”
I studied her.
“Why St. Lucia?”
Her gaze shifted.
“That was supposed to be after everything became official.”
“My due date was that week.”
“I know.”
“Did you know before you left?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“He told me you were due at the end of the month.”
I stared at her.
Noah had been born on September fifth.
My due date had been September seventh.
Julian had moved it by three weeks in his version.
Chloe looked sick.
“The day the photos came out, I saw the article mention you’d given birth.”
“What did Julian say?”
“He said reporters were confused.”
I almost smiled at the absurdity.
“About the existence of his child?”
“He said Noah came early.”
“He didn’t.”
“I know.”
She rubbed her palms together.
“I left St. Lucia that afternoon.”
That explained why later photographs had shown Julian alone.
“I thought you were both separated,” she said. “That doesn’t excuse what I did. I should have verified. I should have questioned why everything had to be secret.”
“No. You should have.”
She flinched.
I did not soften it.
I was not obligated to comfort my husband’s mistress because he had lied to her too.
But I listened.
“What else did he lie about?”
Chloe opened her bag.
She removed a printed email.
“Two weeks before the trip, Julian asked me to coordinate with an outside communications consultant.”
“Why?”
“He said there might be press interest in our relationship.”
I frowned.
“Before the photographs happened?”
“Yes.”
She pushed the email toward me.
Julian had written:
If images emerge organically, do not suppress them. The narrative should remain forward-looking and personal, not scandal-oriented.
I read it twice.
“Organically?”
Chloe looked ashamed.
“There was a photographer at the resort.”
“You knew?”
“I thought Julian had tipped a lifestyle columnist.”
“Why?”
“He said once your separation became public, it would be better if people saw him moving forward rather than speculating.”
My stomach turned.
The St. Lucia photographs had not simply exposed Julian.
He had expected them.
Maybe wanted them.
Rachel entered after I called her.
She read the email.
“This could matter.”
“For divorce?”
“For credibility. Timing. Possibly company governance if corporate resources were used.”
Chloe nodded.
“The communications consultant invoiced Pierce Capital.”
Rachel looked at her.
“Do you have that invoice?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you giving us this?”
Chloe’s eyes filled.
“Because yesterday Julian told me I had ruined everything.”
I said nothing.
“He said if I hadn’t left the island early, the story would have settled faster. He blamed me for reporters asking questions.”
“What questions?”
“About why he was traveling during your delivery.”
She swallowed.
“Then I heard him arguing with the CFO.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“What did they say?”
“I don’t understand all of it. Something about the Sterling credit facility. A certification. September twelfth.”
My pulse jumped.
“Did you hear my name?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly?”
Chloe looked at me.
“Julian said, ‘Eleanor was supposed to sign before this became an issue.’”
Silence.
That sentence changed everything.
Rachel immediately called Daniel.
By afternoon, Pierce Capital’s board had received a formal notice preserving Ellie-related financial documents and challenging any representation that my assets were committed to corporate obligations.
We did not accuse Julian of fraud.
Not yet.
Rachel was careful.
We said only that I disputed any authorization beyond limited investment management.
That was enough.
The board called an emergency meeting.
The September twelfth financing was paused.
Julian called me seventeen times.
I answered the eighteenth.
“What have you done?”
No hello.
No apology.
“What I should’ve done years ago.”
“You froze a transaction worth hundreds of millions.”
“No. The board paused a transaction because they don’t know whether your representations are accurate.”
“You’re destroying the company.”
I looked at Noah sleeping against Dad’s chest across the library.
“No, Julian.”
My father looked up.
“I’m asking what belongs to me.”
“You know what happens if this deal collapses?”
“No.”
“People lose jobs.”
There it was.
The old weapon.
Responsibility.
Whenever Julian wanted me to accept something, he expanded the consequences until saying no felt selfish.
If I complained about dinners, employees depended on him.
If I asked him to attend prenatal appointments, investors needed him.
If I questioned travel, the company needed him.
Now my signature was apparently responsible for hundreds of jobs.
“I want Pierce Capital to survive,” I said.
“Then stop this.”
“Survive honestly.”
Silence.
“You’ve been talking to your father.”
“Yes.”
“He always hated me.”
“He warned me.”
“I knew this would happen.”
“What?”
“The second you went back to them, you’d become a Montgomery again.”
I almost laughed.
“I never stopped being one.”
“That’s exactly what he wants you to believe.”
“No. Julian. This is what you wanted me to forget.”
He was silent.
I continued.
“When we started Pierce Capital, whose apartment did we work from?”
“Ours.”
“Who built the early financial model?”
“We both did.”
“Who rewrote the Easton Ridge presentation?”
“Ellie—”
“Who caught the debt covenant error in your first lender term sheet?”
No answer.
“Who wrote the support letter you later changed?”
“Stop.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re trying to rewrite history.”
I felt something inside me settle.
“No.”
I looked around the library where I had spent my childhood.
“I’m finally reading the original.”
The emergency board meeting happened the next day.
Pierce Capital occupied four floors now.
Not one.
The reception area had stone walls, private artwork, and a view over Midtown.
The first office had smelled like printer toner and coffee.
I remembered delivering sandwiches there at midnight.
No one at reception recognized me.
That hurt more than I expected.
“Name?” the receptionist asked.
“Eleanor Pierce.”
Her face changed.
“Oh.”
Not wife of founder.
Not early contributor.
Scandal.
I followed Rachel into the boardroom.
Julian was already seated.
Margaret sat two seats behind him as an observer representing a family investment entity.
Daniel sat beside me.
Dad did not attend.
That had been my decision.
This was mine.
Seven board members.
Two outside attorneys.
The CFO.
General counsel.
An outside lender representative.
Julian looked at me like I had invaded his home.
The chairman opened.
“We are here to determine whether representations made regarding certain related-party assets were accurate.”
Julian spoke first.
“The assets were historically managed alongside household resources.”
I almost admired the phrasing.
Almost.
Rachel placed the original letter on the screen.
Then the altered version.
The chairman leaned forward.
“Which version was provided to Sterling?”
General counsel answered.
“The second.”
“Who approved it?”
Silence.
The CFO shifted.
Julian said, “It came from legacy files.”
I spoke.
“No.”
Every head turned toward me.
Julian’s eyes hardened.
I continued.
“That document could not have come from the legacy file.”
“Why?” the chairman asked.
“Because the logo in the footer did not exist when the letter was written.”
Silence.
Julian stared at the screen.
I pointed.
“Pierce Capital changed logos in 2018.”
The original letter was from 2015.
“The second document uses the 2018 logo but carries the 2015 date.”
The CFO looked sharply at Julian.
I kept going.
“And the phrase ‘financial stability and obligations associated with Pierce Capital’ came from a 2019 investor presentation.”
“How do you know?” someone asked.
“Because I wrote the first version of that phrase.”
I had.
Not in the support letter.
In a presentation discussing general institutional partnerships.
Someone had copied language I created four years later and inserted it into a document supposedly signed four years earlier.
Julian’s attorney whispered to him.
The chairman turned to general counsel.
“Can you authenticate the second document?”
“No.”
“Can you identify who generated it?”
“We’re investigating.”
Margaret’s face had gone pale.
For the first time, I wondered whether she genuinely had not known.
Then the lender representative spoke.
“Our reliance on the Montgomery-related assets was material.”
Daniel asked, “How material?”
The man hesitated.
“Material enough that the financing cannot proceed without clarification.”
Julian stood.
“This is absurd.”
The chairman looked at him.
“Sit down.”
Julian froze.
I recognized the humiliation.
He had never been spoken to that way inside Pierce Capital.
He sat.
The chairman continued.
“Until the document history is verified, Julian, the board is placing you on temporary administrative leave.”
Margaret inhaled sharply.
Julian stared at him.
“You cannot be serious.”
“We are.”
“This is my company.”
The chairman’s expression did not move.
“It is a company with a board.”
Those were the words that broke something.
Not in me.
In Julian.
He looked at me.
And for one instant, I saw the younger man from our apartment.
The one terrified of losing everything.
Then anger returned.
The meeting ended.
Outside the boardroom, Margaret caught my arm.
Daniel immediately stepped closer.
I removed her hand myself.
She whispered, “Do you understand what you’ve done?”
“Yes.”
“You may have ruined your son’s inheritance.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
I glanced through the glass wall where Julian stood surrounded by attorneys.
“I may have stopped his father from stealing mine.”
That night, Rachel called.
The forensic document review had found the altered support letter inside Pierce Capital’s system.
The file metadata showed it had been created eighteen months earlier.
Not eleven years earlier.
And the person who created it had used an executive assistant account.
But that was not the part that mattered most.
Attached to the file was an internal note.
May you like
Four words.
Get Ellie confirmation later.
