Chapter 5 - The Mistress’s Secret
Adrian found Brooke at her Manhattan apartment at 11:07 that night.
She opened the door wearing sweatpants and no engagement ring.
That bothered him immediately.
“Where’s the diamond?”
Brooke’s hand instinctively covered her right pocket.
“Safe.”
“Take it out.”
“What?”
“The ring.”
“Adrian—”
“Now.”
Brooke stared at him, then retrieved it from a drawer.
Adrian did not take it.
He placed Miles’s phone on the kitchen counter.
The photograph of Brooke and Claire glowed between them.
Brooke went pale.
Adrian’s voice remained quiet.
“When?”
She said nothing.
“When did you start meeting my wife?”
“Three months ago.”
“Why?”
Brooke’s eyes filled with tears.
This time Adrian was not moved by them.
“Because she found me first.”
He stared.
Brooke sat.
“She came to my office. I thought she was going to expose us.”
“What did she want?”
“To know whether Miles had ever contacted me.”
Adrian’s stomach tightened.
“Had he?”
“Yes.”
Brooke wiped her face.
“He started approaching me about a year ago.”
Before Adrian’s affair with her had even begun.
That realization hit hard.
“He introduced us,” Adrian said.
Brooke nodded.
Miles had arranged the charity dinner where Adrian and Brooke first met.
Miles had encouraged Adrian to attend.
Miles had placed Brooke beside him.
The affair Adrian had considered his own weakness suddenly looked like someone else’s carefully opened door.
That did not absolve him.
He knew it.
But it changed the shape of the betrayal.
“What did Miles want from you?”
“At first? Nothing. He just wanted me near you.”
“And later?”
“Information.”
Adrian’s expression turned dangerous.
“What information?”
“Your travel. Meetings. Passwords if I could get them. Who you trusted.”
“Did you give it to him?”
Brooke cried silently.
“Some.”
Adrian turned away.
He had expected anger.
Instead he felt exhausted.
“Why?”
“Miles knew things about my brother.”
Adrian stopped.
Brooke’s younger brother had died of an overdose four years earlier.
At least, that was the official story.
“What things?”
“He had been moving money for Warren Pike.”
Adrian looked back.
“Miles threatened to give evidence to federal prosecutors and destroy my parents unless I helped him.”
“So you slept with me.”
“At first because he wanted me close.”
The room became very still.
“And afterward?”
Brooke looked down.
“I fell in love with you.”
Adrian laughed once, bitterly.
“You helped a man destroy me.”
“I tried to stop.”
“When?”
“When Claire found me.”
That was the part Adrian had not expected.
Brooke explained.
Claire had not screamed.
Had not threatened her.
She had placed a folder on Brooke’s desk containing copies of payments Miles had made to her brother.
Then Claire asked a single question.
Do you want him to keep owning you?
Brooke had broken.
For three months, the wife and mistress had secretly exchanged information.
Brooke gave Claire messages from Miles.
Claire traced the accounts.
Together, they discovered a plan scheduled for January.
Miles intended to frame Adrian for a federal conspiracy, seize his legitimate companies through debt agreements, and allow Warren Pike to absorb everything else.
“And the proposal?” Adrian asked.
Brooke’s shame deepened.
“I didn’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I swear.”
“Then why did you say yes?”
Her answer was devastatingly simple.
“Because I wanted you.”
Adrian looked at the woman he had risked his marriage for.
For the first time, he understood how little he actually knew her.
Brooke removed the engagement ring.
“I thought if Claire left you…”
“You could replace her?”
Brooke flinched.
“Yes.”
Adrian picked up the ring.
“No one replaces Claire.”
Brooke stared at him.
“You already did.”
That landed.
Because it was true.
Adrian put the ring in his pocket.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she take besides the ledger?”
Brooke hesitated.
Adrian noticed.
“What?”
“There’s something else.”
His pulse changed.
Brooke opened a kitchen drawer and removed a flash drive.
“Claire gave me this in case something happened to her.”
“What’s on it?”
“She said it contained proof of who authorized the original transfer that started Miles’s takeover.”
Adrian inserted it into Brooke’s laptop.
One document appeared.
He opened it.
The authorization was eight years old.
Adrian read the signature twice.
Then a third time.
THOMAS COLE.
His father.
Brooke whispered, “Claire thought your father started all of this.”
Adrian stared at the screen.
That made no sense.
Unless the betrayal was older than Miles.
His phone rang.
Marco.
Adrian answered immediately.
“Claire?”
“She’s safe, but we have a problem.”
“What?”
“Someone followed us.”
Adrian grabbed his coat.
“Where?”
“Don’t come here.”
“Marco—”
“I mean it. We moved Claire again.”
“Where?”
“I’m not telling you.”
Adrian’s temper exploded.
“That is my wife.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m not telling you.”
Adrian stopped.
Marco had never spoken to him that way.
Then Marco said something worse.
“Claire found another page hidden inside the ledger.”
“What page?”
“A list.”
“Of what?”
“Payments.”
“To whom?”
Marco was silent.
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“Say it.”
“The first name is Thomas Cole.”
His father.
“The second is Warren Pike.”
His enemy.
“And the third?”
Marco hesitated.
“Adrian Cole.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
He had never seen the payment.
Never authorized it.
But someone had spent years creating a paper trail designed to make it look as though Adrian had financed the conspiracy against himself.
Miles was not preparing merely to steal his empire.
May you like
He was preparing to bury Adrian beneath it.
And somewhere in the snow-covered darkness, Claire was carrying the only original evidence that could prove it.
