Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCHI read the anonymous message three times.
My company.
Not my marriage.
Not my husband.
My company.
I looked up at the dark windows of the townhouse, suddenly aware that the life I had built might be falling apart in more ways than one.
I typed a reply.
Me: Who is this?
No answer.
Me: What are you talking about?
Still nothing.
A taxi slowed beside the curb.
I climbed inside before fear could convince me to turn around.
"Brooklyn," I told the driver. "Park Slope."
The driver glanced at me through the rearview mirror.
"Long night?"
I looked at the wedding ring indentation on my finger.
"Long marriage."
He didn't ask anything else.
My best friend, Maya Chen, opened her apartment door at 5:12 a.m. wearing pajamas and an expression of immediate concern.
She took one look at my suitcase.
Then at my face.
"Oh, Elena."
I had been holding myself together since the video arrived.
I survived Grant's excuses.
I survived his silence.
I survived packing my belongings in a house that no longer felt like mine.
But the moment Maya wrapped her arms around me, I broke.
I cried so hard my knees gave way.
She lowered us onto the hallway floor and held me without asking questions.
Eventually, she helped me to the couch.
I showed her the video.
She watched it once.
Then again.
Her expression went from disbelief to fury.
"Tell me this is some kind of misunderstanding."
"I asked him if he loved her."
"What did he say?"
"That things weren't simple."
Maya closed her eyes.
"I'm going to need you to stop protecting that man."
"I know."
"No, you don't. You've spent eight years making excuses for him."
I looked down.
She softened.
"Elena, you can love someone and still admit they're hurting you."
Those words stayed with me.
Maya and I had met thirteen years earlier at Parsons School of Design.
She became a production specialist.
I became a designer.
Together, we had built Elena Vale Atelier from a rented sewing room into a respected contemporary fashion label with forty-three employees.
Our designs appeared in department stores and independent boutiques throughout the Northeast.
We were not a billion-dollar company.
We weren't even close.
But every piece carried our work, our standards, and our belief that beautiful clothing shouldn't require exploiting the people who made it.
The atelier was the one part of my life I had never surrendered to Grant.
Or so I believed.
Maya noticed my hand resting over my stomach.
"Are you sick?"
I hesitated.
Then I opened my purse.
I took out the ultrasound photograph.
Her eyes widened.
"Elena?"
I nodded.
"Five weeks and four days."
For a moment, she couldn't speak.
Then tears filled her eyes.
"Oh, honey."
She held the photograph carefully.
"Does he know?"
"No."
"Are you going to tell him?"
"I don't know."
Maya sat beside me.
"That's a decision you don't have to make tonight."
"I was going to tell him over dinner."
I showed her the tiny socks.
She covered her mouth.
For several minutes, we sat together without speaking.
Finally, Maya said something I desperately needed to hear.
"This baby is not a reason to stay in a marriage that is breaking you."
I nodded.
"And leaving doesn't mean you have to keep the baby a secret forever. You can decide how to tell him when you're ready."
That morning, I slept for three hours.
When I woke, my phone showed twenty-seven missed calls.
Nineteen were from Grant.
Four were from his assistant, Daniel Price.
Two were from my father.
The remaining two came from an unfamiliar number.
Rebecca's.
I ignored them all.
At ten thirty, Maya brought me coffee.
Decaf.
She remembered without being asked.
That nearly made me cry again.
"There's something else," she said.
She placed her laptop on the table.
An article from a Manhattan society website filled the screen.
The headline read:
MERCER HOLDINGS HEIR CELEBRATES REBECCA HALE'S NEW BEGINNING WITH RARE SAPPHIRE GIFT.
Beneath it was a photograph of Grant and Rebecca at the rooftop event.
She wore the necklace.
He stood beside her.
They looked like a couple.
The article described Rebecca as Grant's longtime confidante and newly appointed creative partnerships adviser to the Mercer Foundation.
Then I saw the last paragraph.
Rebecca would oversee a major expansion of the foundation's luxury fashion partnerships.
Including a collaborative initiative involving Elena Vale Atelier.
My breath caught.
"What initiative?"
Maya shook her head.
"I've never heard of it."
"Neither have I."
I called our studio manager, Rosa Alvarez.
She answered immediately.
"Elena, thank God."
Something in her voice frightened me.
"What's wrong?"
"We received a notice from Northline Textiles."
Northline was our primary manufacturing and distribution partner.
Mercer Holdings owned a controlling interest in its parent company.
I'd always known that connection carried risks.
But Grant had promised to keep his business separate from mine.
"What kind of notice?" I asked.
"They're suspending our production account."
I stood.
"That can't be right. We're current on every invoice."
"That's what I told them."
"What's the reason?"
Rosa hesitated.
"Apparently, an internal review found irregularities in our payment records."
Maya moved closer.
I gripped the phone.
"Who ordered the review?"
"That's the strange part."
Rosa lowered her voice.
"The notice came through Mercer Holdings' luxury partnerships division."
My stomach tightened.
"Send me everything."
"I already did."
I opened my email.
The document had been forwarded from a Mercer executive address.
A signature appeared at the bottom.
Rebecca Hale.
And directly beneath her name was one sentence that made my blood run cold.
This suspension has been authorized by the Office of the Chief Executive.
Grant's office.
My husband's office.
I had walked away from his marriage.
But somehow, before I had even reached safety, the woman wearing my anniversary necklace had put her hands on the business I had spent thirteen years building.
May you like
And the most terrifying question wasn't what Rebecca wanted.
It was whether Grant had already given it to her.
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