Chapter 3 - THE EARRINGS
I left the ballroom after midnight.
Not alone.
Northstar security walked me to the hotel garage.
Julian followed anyway.
“Audrey.”
I kept walking.
“Audrey!”
I stopped beside the elevator.
He looked wrecked.
Not guilty.
Not sorry.
Wrecked because the room had stopped belonging to him.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“About Northstar?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
His face tightened.
“Why?”
“You never asked what I did.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You told people I volunteered.”
“You let me.”
“You introduced me as your wife.”
“You never asked what I built.”
He rubbed his face.
“I was busy.”
That almost made me smile.
“Exactly.”
He stepped closer.
“Camilla and I—”
“Don’t.”
“It isn’t what you think.”
I looked at him.
“The earrings are mine.”
He froze.
Small details.
Always.
“My mother gave me those earrings.”
“Audrey—”
“She was wearing them while you told me to go home.”
He looked down.
That was answer enough.
Then he said the worst possible thing.
“She liked them.”
I stared.
He heard himself.
Too late.
The elevator doors opened.
I stepped inside.
Before they closed, Julian said.
“You cannot destroy my career over a marriage problem.”
I held his eyes.
“The marriage problem hit my shoulder.”
“The career problem approved fourteen point eight million dollars.”
The doors closed.
At 2:11 a.m., Rebecca called me.
“We found something in Camilla’s phone backup.”
“What?”
“Photos from your house.”
I sat up in bed.
“What kind?”
“Your office.”
My stomach tightened.
Julian knew that room was private.
Even he rarely entered.
Rebecca sent one image.
Camilla standing in front of my desk.
My family trust binder open.
Another.
A Northstar board calendar.
Another.
A handwritten acquisition list.
Aurelia Systems was circled.
Date stamp.
Four months earlier.
Before Northstar’s acquisition committee formally opened the file.
If prosecutors saw the photo without context, it could look like Camilla had access to inside information.
And if she had it through my home—
I whispered.
“They’re going to say I traded on marital information.”
Rebecca was quiet.
“Yes.”
Then she sent the last photo.
Camilla smiling into a mirror.
Wearing my earrings.
Behind her, reflected in the glass, stood Julian.
May you like
Holding my office door open.
