“She has two phones,” Frank muttered, staring blankly at the traffic passing by on the busy street. “She always said one was for top-secret corporate compliance and international clients. She never let me touch it.”
“And she told me it was a secure government-encrypted line for Meridian’s defense contracts,” I replied, a bitter smile touching my lips. The sheer scale of her deception was staggering. It required a level of calculation and emotional detachment that I couldn’t reconcile with the woman I kissed goodbye every morning.
Frank looked at me, the hostility completely gone from his eyes, replaced by a shared sense of profound betrayal. “What do we do now?”
“We go upstairs,” I said quietly. “We ask her together.”
Frank nodded slowly. The dynamic between us had shifted completely. We were no longer rivals or strangers; we were two men who had been systematically deceived by the same woman. He used his executive keycard to bypass the security desk, giving a brief nod to a visibly confused William, and led me into the private elevator that ascended directly to the executive suite.
The ride up was silent. The digital numbers ticked upward, each floor bringing us closer to the truth. When the doors opened onto the top floor, the atmosphere was hushed and expensive. Plush carpets muffled our footsteps as Frank led the way past a receptionist who looked up in surprise.
“Mr. Sterling? Mrs. Hutchkins is in the middle of reviewing the quarterly—”
Frank didn’t stop. He pushed open the heavy double mahogany doors to the CEO’s office.
Lauren was sitting behind a massive glass desk, framed by a panoramic view of the city skyline. She was looking at a document, her glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, looking every bit the powerful executive she was. Hearing the door open, she spoke without looking up. “Frank, did you find those files? We need to verify the compliance numbers before the board calls.”
“I found something else, Lauren,” Frank said.
Lauren looked up, her gaze instantly moving from Frank to me. For the first time in twenty-eight years, I saw my wife completely lose her composure. The papers in her hand slipped from her fingers, scattering across the glass desk. Her eyes widened, her lips parting in a silent gasp as her gaze darted between her husband of two years and her husband of nearly three0.
“Gerald?” she whispered, her voice cracking, the corporate armor shattering instantly. “What are you doing here?”
I walked forward and placed the brown paper bag containing the homemade sandwich right in the middle of her desk, on top of her important documents. “I brought you lunch, Lauren. But it looks like you’re already full of lies.”
