They knew about the inheritance. Marcus had known when he came to the hospital. He wasn’t leaving me because he couldn’t support me anymore—he was leaving because he thought I’d just inherited money he could claim in divorce court. And Valerie, the employee I’d trusted, had been feeding him inside information, planning to steal my clients and destroy the business I’d built.
I called Rebecca. “Change of plans. We’re not staying quiet anymore. We’re going nuclear.”
Marcus filed for divorce exactly one week after my accident. His proposed settlement was exactly as insulting as James Rosewood had predicted: Marcus would keep “his” assets (including the apartment I owned), “his” retirement accounts (funded by my money), and “his” vehicle (paid for by me). I would receive the furniture, the contents of our joint checking account (currently about $3,000), and whatever I’d earned from my “freelance work.” He was offering me roughly $50,000 from an eight-year marriage. He was being generous, the papers implied, because I’d “contributed in non-financial ways.”
James Rosewood was grinning when I called him. “This is beautiful. It’s art. He’s basically putting in writing that he believes you contributed nothing of value.”
“So what do we do?”
“We file our counter-proposal. And we invite Mr. Chen and his attorney to a settlement conference where we’ll present our evidence. Does Tuesday work for you?”
Tuesday worked perfectly. The conference room at Rosewood & Associates was designed to intimidate. The table held six people: me, James Rosewood, Sandra Liu, Marcus, his attorney, and Valerie Chen, who Marcus had apparently brought as “emotional support.”
The look on Valerie’s face when she saw me sitting there, represented by Manhattan’s most feared divorce attorney, was worth every penny of my legal fees.
“Thank you for coming,” James began pleasantly. “We have some items to discuss.”
Marcus’s attorney, a man named Donald Grayson, seemed confused. “With all due respect, your firm handles high-net-worth divorces. This seems outside the scope of the case. Mrs. Chen is a freelance designer with minimal assets.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” James replied. “Let’s test it.” He slid the first document across the table. “This is the deed to the apartment. You’ll notice it’s held in a trust established by Mrs. Chen three years before the marriage. Mr. Chen has never held any ownership interest.”
Marcus went pale. Valerie reached for his hand under the table.
“This,” James continued, sliding another document, “is Mrs. Chen’s tax return from last year. You’ll notice her adjusted gross income was two-point-four million dollars, primarily from her salary as CEO of Wade Digital Solutions, a company she founded and owns outright.”
Donald Grayson was flipping through the pages, his expression shifting from confusion to horror. “I don’t understand. Mr. Chen represented that—”
“Mr. Chen represented many things that were false,” James interrupted smoothly. “Would you like to see the forensic accounting report showing how Mr. Chen systematically took nearly half a million dollars from joint accounts funded entirely by Mrs. Chen? Or perhaps the credit card statements showing him financing an affair with Ms. Valerie Chen here?”
Valerie stood up. “I need to leave.”
“Sit down,” Sandra Liu said coldly. “You’re named in a separate lawsuit for corporate espionage and theft of trade secrets. You’re not going anywhere.”
