Chapter 3 - The Boardroom Panic
While I poured myself a glass of Sancerre in my quiet kitchen, the atrium at Harlo Reed had descended into chaos.
According to David, who was too panicked to keep Jake's secrets anymore, the engagement party had abruptly ended when Jake sprinted off the platform, leaving Amanda holding her champagne glass in total confusion.
Jake had burst into the executive boardroom, locking the door behind him, desperately screaming into his phone to his lawyers, trying to find a loophole in a contract he had willingly signed a decade ago.
Amanda, realizing something was catastrophically wrong, had used her master keycard to enter the boardroom.
"What is going on?" Amanda had demanded, holding up her left hand. "Jake, the CFO just told me our operational liquidity is gone. Who is doing this?"
Jake had looked at his new fiancée, the woman he had meticulously built a false life for, and finally had to introduce her to reality.
"My wife," Jake had choked out.
Amanda had stared at him, the heavy diamond suddenly feeling like a shackle. "Your what?"
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"My wife, Amanda. The woman standing in the atrium with the roses. She holds the convertible notes for the company."
Amanda was a brilliant CEO, but her fatal flaw was trusting the word of a charismatic man. The realization that she was not only the "other woman," but also the captain of a company that had just been financially torpedoed by the legal wife, broke her composure completely.
