By the time twenty-two-year-old Jenna Lane asked my husband to take off her shoe and rub her ankle in front of nearly four hundred employees, I had already heard enough “Daddy” jokes to last a lifetime. What I had not expected was to watch my husband kneel at her feet at our company’s annual gala while half the room stared at me with pity.
Chapter 1
“Daddy, it hurts,” Jenna whimpered from the edge of the stage.
My husband, Scott Bennett, crouched beside her in his tuxedo. “You need to be more careful.”
Then he slipped off her high heel and began gently massaging her ankle.
The ballroom went so quiet I could hear silverware touching china three tables away.
Jenna looked over Scott’s shoulder and found me sitting at the head table. A tiny smile touched her lips. “Mrs. Bennett, please don’t misunderstand. Daddy’s just used to taking care of me.”
She reached down and ran her fingers through his hair.
That was when several people looked away.
I didn’t.
For eight years, I had been Scott’s wife. For twelve, I had been the founder and majority owner of Northstar Systems, the software company whose logo hung twenty feet high behind that stage. I had spent the previous year mostly away from the office after a difficult pregnancy and the birth of our son, Ethan.
During that year, I had allowed Scott to serve as CEO.
Apparently, he had mistaken temporary authority for ownership.
Jenna had arrived as a marketing intern six months earlier. Stories about her had reached me almost immediately.
“Daddy, will you buy me tampons? I’m having the worst day.”
“Daddy, my zipper is stuck. Help me.”
“Daddy, where’s my pink hair tie? You’re supposed to wear it around your wrist.”
When I confronted Scott, he laughed.
“She’s twenty-two, Claire. She thinks she’s being cute.”
“You encourage it.”
“I tolerate it. There’s a difference.”
I had wanted to believe him. We had two children, a marriage, and a company employing hundreds of people. Surely no forty-one-year-old executive with functioning judgment would conduct an affair so openly.
Watching his hands on Jenna’s bare ankle, I realized I had overestimated him.
I rose and applauded three times.
Scott froze.
Every head turned toward me.
“Mr. Bennett is simply showing concern for an employee,” I said pleasantly. “We shouldn’t let that interrupt the gala. Please continue.”
Jenna blinked.
She had wanted anger. She wanted the discarded wife to throw champagne, scream, or slap somebody so she could become the trembling young victim.
Instead, I smiled.
Twenty minutes later, I excused myself to the ladies’ room.
My phone rang before I reached it. Our nanny was calling.
Five-year-old Sophie appeared on the screen in pink pajamas. “Mommy, when are you and Daddy coming home?”
“Not too late, sweetheart.”
“Ethan’s already sleeping.”
“Then you should be sleeping too.”
She giggled. “Love you.”
“I love you more.”
After the call ended, I stared at my reflection. There were fine lines around my eyes now. I had earned some through sleepless nights with babies and others through twelve years of building Northstar from a rented office into a company worth hundreds of millions.
The restroom door opened.
Jenna walked in without limping.
I almost laughed.
“So the ankle recovered.”
Her expression changed. The sugary innocence disappeared.
“You know, Claire, staying home suits you.”
“Does it?”
“Scott and I handle things just fine without you.”
I turned toward her.
She smiled at herself in the mirror. “He likes it when I call him Daddy. It’s our thing.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
She frowned, disappointed by my reaction.
Then she moved closer. “He says you’ve gotten boring. He says being married to you feels like another meeting on his calendar.”
That one landed.
Not because I believed every word, but because she knew things she should not have known.
She sprayed perfume onto her wrist. The scent reached me immediately—sweet vanilla and jasmine.
I had smelled it on Scott’s shirts.
Many times.
Jenna watched recognition cross my face.
“There it is,” she whispered. “You finally understand.”
She reached into her purse and dropped a crumpled condom wrapper onto the marble counter.
“From his office last night.”
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then the restroom door flew open.
Rachel Morgan, Northstar’s sales director and one of my oldest employees, hurried inside.
“Claire, I need you.”
Jenna smirked. “Run along.”
Rachel pulled me into the hallway and showed me her phone.
Northstar employees had an unofficial gossip channel. On the screen were photographs of Jenna wearing Scott’s dress shirt after midnight, another of their intertwined hands, and one showing the watch I had given Scott for his fortieth birthday on Jenna’s wrist.
Then Rachel played an audio recording.
Jenna’s voice filled the hallway.
“Once Daddy divorces that old woman, I’ll be Mrs. Bennett. Then this company will basically be mine.”
I listened twice.
Then I handed Rachel her phone.
“Claire?”
“Send me everything.”
“What are you going to do?”
I looked through the ballroom doors at my husband laughing nervously with Jenna.
“Correct a misunderstanding.”
I made three calls.
The first went to Northstar’s general counsel.
The second went to my executive assistant.
The third went to security.
Then I returned to the ballroom and walked straight toward the stage.
Scott intercepted me.
“Claire, about earlier—”
“It’s fine.”
He looked more frightened by those two words than he would have been by screaming.
I took the microphone from the host.
“Good evening, everyone. Before we close tonight, there’s been a change in the program.”
Behind me, the giant presentation screen went black.
Jenna smiled.
She still thought I was about to embarrass myself.
Then the first bank statement appeared.
Scott stopped breathing.
