Chapter 2 - THE COMPANY CARD
For the remaining two hours of the flight, I learned exactly how long two people could sit twenty feet apart and live in completely different realities.
Ryan was relaxed.
I could see it in the careless angle of his shoulders.
Every few minutes he leaned close to Chloe, and she whispered something that made him smile.
Once, he reached across the armrest and intertwined their fingers.
I watched without staring.
There is a strange point in betrayal when pain becomes information.
The first sight of them together had felt like being stabbed.
By the tenth little touch, I was cataloging evidence.
A kiss near her ear.
His hand on her knee.
Her phone held up for a selfie.
The matching luggage tags.
The flight attendant repeatedly addressing them as a married couple.
Each detail hurt less than the one before it because another emotion was taking over.
Clarity.
For years, Ryan had made me question myself.
I had been “too suspicious.”
“Too sensitive.”
“Too focused on work.”
Whenever I noticed Chloe calling after midnight, Ryan accused me of jealousy.
When I found a hotel receipt in his coat from a weekend he claimed to be visiting a client, he told me accounting had accidentally billed the wrong date.
When he stopped wearing his wedding ring during business trips, he said his fingers swelled on airplanes.
I believed explanations because believing them was easier than admitting my marriage had become a courtroom where I was always required to prove what I could already see.
My phone buzzed again.
Daniel.
Can you talk privately?
I looked toward the rear lavatory.
Five minutes.
I stood.
Ryan didn’t notice me.
That somehow made everything worse.
I walked toward the back of the cabin and locked myself inside the tiny lavatory.
Then I called Daniel through the onboard connection.
His face appeared grainy on the screen.
“Claire.”
“What did you find?”
He hesitated.
Daniel Shaw had represented my father’s companies for fourteen years. He was sixty, silver-haired, painfully careful, and so incapable of melodrama that his hesitation frightened me.
“Do you remember approving the executive travel expansion last year?”
“Yes.”
“You approved a higher travel allowance for Ryan and the senior leadership team.”
“Correct.”
“You didn’t approve personal residences.”
I frowned.
“What personal residences?”
Daniel looked down at something.
“There’s a property in Aspen.”
My throat tightened.
“What property?”
“A condominium purchased fourteen months ago through an LLC called Summit North Holdings.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Neither had I. Hawthorne’s compliance team flagged recurring payments during the review you requested. Summit North receives money from a consulting subsidiary controlled by Mercer Strategic.”
“How much?”
“Approximately eight hundred and forty thousand dollars so far.”
I gripped the sink.
“For a condo?”
“Purchase, renovations, furnishings, maintenance. There are additional charges.”
“What additional charges?”
“Jewelry. Restaurants. A private club membership. Travel.”
I closed my eyes.
“Chloe?”
“We’re still verifying.”
“Whose name is on the condo?”
“Summit North.”
“Who owns Summit North?”
“That’s what concerns me.”
He turned toward another monitor.
“The LLC was organized by a law firm Ryan has used privately. The beneficial ownership declaration identifies two individuals.”
I already knew.
Still, I made him say it.
“Who?”
“Ryan Mercer and Chloe Bennett.”
The airplane seemed to shift under my feet.
I pressed my palm against the wall.
“He bought a home with her using company money?”
“Potentially company money. I want to be exact. We haven’t completed tracing the transfers.”
“How could finance miss this?”
“Some invoices were categorized as client development.”
I laughed once.
It sounded ugly in the tiny room.
“Client development.”
“Claire—”
“He told me he was going to Portland.”
“I understand.”
“No. You don’t.” My voice cracked. “He kissed me this morning. He stood in our kitchen, drank coffee from the mug my mother gave him, and told me he’d be home Sunday.”
Daniel went quiet.
I swallowed hard.
“What else?”
“There is a pending board consent.”
“For what?”
“Ryan submitted it yesterday. He wants authority to restructure voting rights before a possible outside capital raise.”
I froze.
“Without telling me?”
“You were supposed to receive the documents tomorrow.”
“But if I signed?”
“Your trust’s influence could be substantially diluted.”
There it was.
The second betrayal.
The affair had broken my heart.
This could destroy something my father spent forty years building.
“Why would Ryan risk that?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I thought of Chloe smiling when the flight attendant called her Mrs. Mercer.
Get used to it.
“What happens if I refuse?”
“He needs your block.”
“Can the restructuring happen without Hawthorne?”
“No.”
“Then stop it.”
“Already done.”
“What about Ryan?”
“He’ll receive notice after the compliance hold is formalized.”
“When?”
Daniel glanced at the time.
“Approximately twenty minutes.”
Twenty minutes.
I ended the call and returned to my seat.
Ryan was laughing.
For the first time, I felt no temptation to confront him.
Why waste truth on someone who had invested so heavily in lying?
I opened my laptop and began downloading personal financial statements.
Mortgage documents.
Tax returns.
Joint account history.
Insurance policies.
Anything I might need before Ryan realized the woman sitting twenty feet behind him had stopped being his wife in every way that mattered.
Fourteen minutes later, Ryan’s phone lit up.
He looked at it casually.
Then his smile disappeared.
He sat straighter.
Chloe noticed.
“What?”
Ryan didn’t answer.
He opened an email.
His face drained of color.
I couldn’t read the screen.
I didn’t need to.
Hawthorne Capital had just frozen him.
He immediately started typing.
Then his phone rang.
He declined the call.
It rang again.
He stood so quickly his champagne nearly spilled.
Chloe grabbed his sleeve.
“Ryan?”
He whispered something sharp.
She stiffened.
The flight attendant approached.
“Sir, please remain seated. We’re experiencing turbulence.”
“I need to make a call.”
“I’m sorry, but—”
Ryan turned toward the cabin.
His eyes swept past rows of passengers.
Then they landed on me.
Everything stopped.
His face changed so violently that the woman beside me noticed.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
I smiled.
“I’m fine.”
Ryan stared at me as though I had materialized from another universe.
Chloe followed his gaze.
Her mouth fell open.
I lifted my champagne glass.
Not in celebration.
Not exactly.
More like a greeting.
Ryan’s lips silently formed my name.
Claire.
I took one slow sip.
Then my phone buzzed.
A new message from Daniel.
The board has opened a formal investigation. Ryan has been temporarily suspended as CEO effective immediately.
Across the cabin, my husband’s phone chimed.
He looked down.
Whatever he read made his hand shake.
Chloe whispered, “What happened?”
Ryan didn’t answer her.
He was still staring at me.
That was when the captain’s voice came over the speakers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve begun our descent into Denver.”
I fastened my seat belt.
Ryan had twenty minutes before we landed.
Twenty minutes before he could reach me.
May you like
Twenty minutes to wonder how much I knew.
I intended to enjoy every second.
