Chapter 5 - The Mistress's Golden Parachute
Nico Moretti, the corporate intelligence specialist, stepped into the light, holding a thin manila envelope.
He walked past Adrian and stopped directly in front of Vanessa Hart.
“Miss Hart,” Nico began, his tone deceptively polite, “you spent eight months convincing Adrian Cole that you were an independently wealthy heiress from the Philadelphia Harts, didn't you?”
Vanessa stared at Nico like a trapped deer in headlights.
Nico pulled three documents from the folder and held them up.
“In reality, your name is Vanessa Jenkins. You were fired from your previous position at a mid-town accounting firm three years ago for corporate credit fraud. You targeted Adrian at a real estate gala in Manhattan after obtaining an unauthorized copy of Cole Construction's financial disclosures.”
Nico clicked the tablet in his hand, bringing up a series of text messages on the main screen.
The entire ballroom read the transcripts of Vanessa’s conversations with her private financial broker:
‘Adrian is an idiot who believes anything with a designer label. Once the East River contract clears, I’ll have him wire the remaining five million to the Cayman account, and I’m catching the Friday flight to Zurich. Let his boring wife deal with the bankruptcy.’
The room plunged into absolute, horrified silence.
Adrian snapped his head toward Vanessa, his jaw trembling in utter disbelief. “You... you were planning to take the five million and run?!”
“Adrian, it was a joke! I swear it was a joke!” Vanessa cried, reaching out for his jacket.
“Get your hands off me!” Adrian roared, shoving her away so violently that she stumbled into the champagne pyramid.
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The crystal tower collapsed in a deafening cascade of shattering glass and spraying champagne. Vanessa fell onto the wet floor among the shards, her expensive silver dress soaked in vintage wine and sticky syrup—a mirror image of the humiliation she had attempted to inflict on me an hour earlier.
Nobody stepped forward to help her.
