Chapter 7 - The Fallout and the New Beginning
Three weeks after our midnight meeting at Starbucks, the dissolution of my marriage to Ethan Cole was finalized in the King County Superior Court. It was the fastest, cleanest divorce the family court judges had seen in years—largely because Ethan was in no position to contest a single comma of the agreement. Without his job at the firm, facing an active internal investigation by the Washington State Bar Association, and burdened by a massive lease liability on the One Eighty Bellevue penthouse that Chloe Vance had abruptly abandoned him to escape once the money dried up, Ethan had completely imploded. According to mutual acquaintances who reached out to me with hushed, gossipy updates, Chloe had packed her bags and moved back in with her parents in Spokane within forty-eight hours of learning that Ethan was broke, unemployed, and facing potential felony indictments. The "high-yield tech startup" turned out to be nothing more than a ghost corporation, and the $430,000 Ethan had skimmed from client retainers had been largely eaten up by exorbitant advance rent payments, luxury lease penalties, and legal retainer fees for a high-priced defense attorney who quickly dropped him when Ethan couldn't pay his weekly bill. I, on the other hand, was standing on the balcony of my new, sunlit condo overlooking Elliott Bay, holding a cup of steaming espresso and watching the morning ferries glide across the sparkling blue water toward Bainbridge Island. My forensic accounting firm, Cole & Associates—which I had officially rebranded under my maiden name—was thriving. Three major corporate clients from Chicago, impressed by the meticulous auditing work I had done during my extended trip, had signed long-term retainer contracts that doubled my annual revenue. I no longer had to worry about budgets, joint accounts, or whether my husband considered my career an inconvenient complication. Megan walked out onto the balcony, holding two fresh croissants on a small ceramic plate and wearing her signature victorious grin. "Courier just dropped off the final certified decree from the county clerk," she announced, placing the plate on the glass table. "As of 9:00 AM this morning, you are officially, legally, and completely unbound from the greatest mistake of your thirties." I took a deep breath of the crisp, clean Seattle air, smiling as the morning sun warmed my face. "Good," I murmured, watching a ferry pull away from the Edmonds terminal in the distance. "Because I have a brand-new audit to start tomorrow, and I don't plan on missing a single second of it."
