Chapter 3 - The Three-Week Mirage
For twenty-one days, Alexander Whitmore believed he had taught his wife a lesson.
He told his executive vice president, Richard Cole, that Claire was simply having an emotional episode.
He told Ava that his wife was hiding out in some cheap roadside motel, waiting for him to call and beg her to return.
"Women like Claire don't survive without money," Alexander boasted over scotch at the Union League Club two weeks after the gala.
"She doesn't have an independent credit line."
"She doesn't have any surviving family."
"Her parents died penniless, and her grandmother died in a state-run nursing facility."
"Everything she owns, eats, or touches comes from the Whitmore operating account."
Ava leaned across the leather booth, laughing softly while running her manicured fingers over Eleanor’s pearls.
She had not taken them off since the gala.
She wore them to brunch in the West Loop.
She wore them to live broadcasts on her social media channels.
She tagged Alexander’s private account in every story, marking her territory like a triumphant predator.
"Are you going to serve her with abandonment papers?" Ava asked, fluttering her mascara-heavy lashes.
"Because if she abandoned the marital residence for more than two weeks, Illinois law gives you grounds for an expedited dissolution."
"My lawyer already drafted the filing," Alexander said smoothly, taking a sip of twenty-year-old scotch.
"She took one ragged gym bag."
"She didn't take a dime from our joint checking account."
"She's trying to play the martyr."
"She wants me to track her down, bring her back on my knees, and promise never to see you again."
"And will you?" Ava asked playfully.
Alexander sneered.
"I built Whitmore Logistics from nothing."
"I don't negotiate with hostage takers, especially when the hostage taker is an unemployed English literature graduate."
"Let her freeze for another week."
"When her emergency cash runs out, she’ll come crawling back to the front gate."
"And when she does, she'll sign the post-nuptial agreement without changing a single comma."
The waiter arrived, placing the check on the mahogany table.
Alexander signed his signature with a flourish.
He felt powerful.
He had secured the maritime shipping contract.
His company stock was trading at an all-time high.
His young, gorgeous mistress sat across from him wearing priceless vintage pearls, projecting the modern, virile image he craved.
The dull, quiet wife who reminded him of his early failures was finally out of his sight.
On the morning of the twenty-second day, Alexander entered the boardroom of Whitmore Logistics on the forty-fifth floor of the Willis Tower.
The quarterly board meeting was scheduled for ten in the morning.
The primary agenda item was the restructuring of the Whitmore Family Trust.
Alexander needed to liquidate a parcel of commercial waterfront real estate in South Chicago to finance his new autonomous warehouse fleet.
He sat at the head of the long glass table, surrounded by seven board members and five senior corporate attorneys.
Beside him sat Harold Vance Sterling, the eighty-year-old senior partner of Sterling, Cross & Vance, the oldest trust litigation firm in the Midwest.
Harold wore a bespoke tweed suit that smelled faintly of pipe tobacco and old parchment.
He had handled the Whitmore legal affairs long before Alexander was born.
"Good morning, gentlemen," Alexander began, clapping his hands together.
"Let's make this quick."
"I have a lunch appointment at noon."
"Harold, bring up the deed transfer for the South Chicago deep-water terminal."
"I need the trust sign-off so we can wire the earnest money to the contractors by three o'clock."
Harold didn't open his leather briefcase immediately.
He adjusted his spectacles.
He looked at Alexander over the gold frames with an expression that held no deference, no warmth, and absolutely no hurry.
May you like
"Alexander," the old lawyer said quietly, his voice echoing across the silent boardroom.
"We have a catastrophic problem."
