Chapter 9 - His Mother Came to My Door
I had never seen Eleanor Prescott cry.
Not at her husband's heart surgery.
Not at her sister's funeral.
Not even when Aaron's company lost a major contract and the family's paper wealth dropped by tens of millions in a week.
Eleanor considered emotion a private bodily malfunction.
So when I opened my door and found her standing there with swollen eyes and no makeup, I didn't immediately know what to say.
“Eleanor.”
“May I come in?”
I hesitated.
Then stepped aside.
She entered slowly.
For a moment she simply looked around the house.
“I haven't been here in years.”
“You came once before the wedding.”
“Yes.”
She remembered.
We sat in the living room.
I didn't offer tea.
Some relationships had moved beyond ceremony.
“What happened?”
“Aaron came to see us last night.”
“And?”
“He told his father everything.”
“Everything about what?”
“Jasmine. North Star. You.”
I waited.
Eleanor looked down at her hands.
“William asked me whether I knew.”
There it was.
“And you told him.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“He asked me why I didn't tell you.”
I nearly laughed.
“Good question.”
“I didn't have an answer.”
“You had one when you came to Nathan's office.”
She looked at me.
“I was protecting my son.”
“Exactly.”
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“I was protecting the image I had of my son.”
That was more honest.
She continued.
“I told myself affairs happen. That successful men behave badly under pressure. That marriages survive worse.”
“That sounds convenient.”
“It was.”
She swallowed.
“I thought you would stay.”
“So did Aaron.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Eleanor looked around again.
“Because I stayed.”
That surprised me.
“With William?”
She nodded.
“Years ago.”
I remained silent.
“He was unfaithful once. Before Caroline was born.”
I had never known.
“I discovered it.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
“My mother told me women in our position don't destroy families over humiliation.”
The word echoed.
Humiliation.
The same accusation Eleanor had used against me.
Suddenly I understood.
She hadn't invented that worldview.
She inherited it.
Then passed it forward.
“I stayed,” she said. “And eventually William changed. We rebuilt.”
“I'm glad.”
“But I decided that meant my decision was the correct decision for everyone.”
I nodded slowly.
“That doesn't follow.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“Now.”
For the first time since I met her, Eleanor seemed small.
Not weak.
Human.
“I owe you an apology.”
“Yes.”
The direct answer startled her.
I wasn't going to rescue her from discomfort.
She took a breath.
“I knew enough to warn you.”
“Yes.”
“I didn't.”
“No.”
“I treated your dignity as less important than Aaron's reputation.”
“Yes.”
Tears filled her eyes again.
“And I was wrong.”
Silence.
Apologies are strange.
People imagine hearing “I'm sorry” creates relief.
Sometimes it creates grief.
Because acknowledgment proves the pain was real.
“I accept your apology,” I said.
She covered her mouth briefly.
“But we aren't going back to what we were.”
“I know.”
“I don't trust you.”
“I know.”
“And I'm divorcing Aaron.”
Her face tightened.
“I know.”
“Your apology doesn't change that.”
“I didn't expect it to.”
Good.
We sat quietly.
Then Eleanor reached into her bag.
“I brought something.”
An old leather portfolio.
She handed it to me.
Inside were documents.
Letters.
Handwritten notes.
Event plans.
Copies of investor correspondence.
My handwriting.
“What is this?”
“Things you prepared over the years.”
“Why do you have them?”
“Aaron gave me copies before events.”
I flipped through.
There were seating charts.
Client notes.
Charity proposals.
One memo I wrote after Aaron complained about employee retention.
I had forgotten it.
“You kept these?”
“I keep everything.”
Of course she did.
“Why bring them?”
“Because if Prescott is documenting your contributions, these belong with the record.”
I looked at her.
“Thank you.”
She stood.
At the door, she turned.
“There’s one more thing.”
“What?”
“Jasmine's father called William.”
I frowned.
“Her father?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He says Peter Cole has been using Jasmine's name to pressure Prescott employees.”
“When?”
“For months.”
My stomach tightened.
“Does Rebecca know?”
“William told her.”
“Good.”
Eleanor hesitated.
“Claire, I know you don't owe this family anything.”
“No.”
“But Aaron may be in more trouble than the initial review suggested.”
I didn't respond.
She left.
I called Rebecca.
She couldn't discuss details.
But her tone confirmed the situation had changed.
By afternoon, Prescott announced the special committee was expanding its review.
Not because Aaron had received money.
Because North Star representatives may have misrepresented their access to company leadership.
That could mean Peter Cole used Jasmine's relationship with Aaron to win influence elsewhere.
Jasmine called me at six.
I almost didn't answer.
“Claire.”
She was crying.
“What happened?”
“My uncle is blaming me.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“Where are you?”
“At my apartment.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have an attorney?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“He says I introduced him to Aaron.”
“Did you?”
“No. They met before Aaron and I were involved.”
Caroline had said the same.
“Then your attorney can document that.”
“He says he'll tell everyone I pushed Aaron to hire him.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then stop arguing with him.”
She became quiet.
“I thought you'd hate me.”
“I don't know you well enough to hate you.”
A small laugh escaped through her tears.
“That's brutal.”
“It's also true.”
“I deserve that.”
“No.”
I surprised myself.
“You deserve consequences for your choices. That's different.”
She was silent.
“Don't let guilt convince you every bad thing that happens is yours to carry.”
I knew something about that.
“Thank you.”
After the call, I sat by the window.
I wondered what my life had become.
Two months earlier, I was managing flower arrangements for a Prescott charity event.
Now I was advising my husband's former mistress not to accept responsibility for her uncle's alleged misconduct.
Life had a dark sense of humor.
Then my phone rang again.
Aaron.
“Jasmine called you.”
“How do you know?”
“She told me.”
“Okay.”
“She’s terrified.”
“Yes.”
“Peter threatened her.”
My posture changed.
“With what?”
“To release private messages.”
“Between you and her?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“What kind?”
“Personal.”
“Then let him.”
Aaron was silent.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“If those messages come out, you're in them.”
My stomach tightened.
“How?”
“I talked about you.”
I stared into the darkness.
“What did you say?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Then:
“Things I'm ashamed of.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that I wanted to warn you.”
I stood.
“What things, Aaron?”
He exhaled.
“I blamed you for my affair.”
I didn't speak.
“I said you were cold.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“That you cared more about appearances than me.”
He continued.
“That you refused intimacy.”
My eyes burned.
None of it was true.
Not in the way he had apparently presented it.
“What else?”
“That our marriage was basically transactional.”
I laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“You told her I married you for money.”
“Yes.”
“When you knew about my trust.”
“I knew you had money. I didn't understand how much.”
“That doesn't matter.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because if I admitted you loved me, Claire, then I had to admit what I was doing.”
There it was.
The ugliest truth yet.
He didn't lie only to Jasmine.
He lied to himself.
He rewrote me into someone easier to betray.
“When are the messages coming out?”
“I don't know.”
Within twelve hours, I had my answer.
At 6:11 the next morning, screenshots appeared online.
Dozens of them.
Aaron and Jasmine.
Private texts.
Flirtation.
Photos from dinners.
Complaints about work.
And messages about me.
Claire doesn't really care where I am.
We're basically roommates.
She likes the Prescott lifestyle more than she likes me.
Then one message stopped me cold.
Sometimes I think Claire wouldn't know what to do with herself without my name.
I stared at it.
I didn't cry.
Not immediately.
Then my phone began filling with notifications.
People online were sharing the line.
Mocking it.
Turning it into memes.
But not in the way Aaron intended.
Because by then, everyone knew about Westbridge.
One comment had tens of thousands of reactions:
“Wouldn’t know what to do without his name” — Sir, she owns hundreds of millions and your biggest outside shareholder listens to her.
Another:
Imagine cheating on your wife and discovering she was the rich one.
I should have felt vindicated.
Instead, I felt sick.
Private pain had become public entertainment.
Then another screenshot surfaced.
And unlike the others, this one wasn't about me.
It showed Aaron telling Jasmine:
If the Meridian deal closes, North Star gets taken care of. Peter just needs to stop pushing.
That message changed everything.
Because now the board wasn't investigating gossip.
It was investigating whether Aaron had personally connected a major acquisition to a vendor benefit.
May you like
And this time, the consequences could reach far beyond our marriage.
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