Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Toasted at My Wedding
Emily Ross appeared in discovery three months later.
Thirty-eight.
Mergers-and-acquisitions attorney.
Counsel advising Northstar on the Mitchell transaction.
I knew her.
She had attended my wedding.
She had hugged me.
Complimented my dress.
Raised champagne during the toast.
She had also been sleeping with David for eleven months.
The messages were painfully ordinary at first.
Hotels.
Dinner plans.
Jealous arguments.
Then they became something else.
Emily:
ONCE SARAH’S BLOCK IS GONE, THE BOARD HAS NO REASON TO RESIST.
David:
SHE THINKS DANIEL WILL SAVE THE COMPANY.
Emily:
YOUR FATHER SAYS DANIEL WILL SELL IF SARAH DOES.
David:
AND IF SHE DOESN’T?
Emily:
THAT’S YOUR MARRIAGE PROBLEM.
Another chain was dated four days before our wedding.
Emily:
IF SHE SIGNS THE SPOUSAL CONSENT, YOUR FATHER GETS HIS EXIT.
David:
SHE’S STILL FIGHTING IT.
Emily:
THEN YOUR DAD WAS RIGHT. HANDLE HER AFTER THE WEDDING.
Then one line that hurt more because it contained actual emotion.
Emily:
I HATE WATCHING YOU MARRY HER.
David:
THIS IS HOW WE GET OUT.
I did not cry until Grace left the room.
Not because he had slept with someone else.
Because the wedding itself had become part of their timetable.
David later admitted that he had promised Emily a future after the acquisition closed.
He believed I would receive so much money from selling my shares that I would eventually accept the betrayal as financially irrelevant.
“She’ll be richer than she needs to be,” he wrote.
That sentence told me more about him than any confession could.
He believed money could compensate someone for losing a legacy they never agreed to sell.
May you like
And love could compensate someone for being used.
He was wrong about both.
