I pulled up the regional authorization logs. To move that kind of money—over four million dollars in the last three months—Harrison would have needed a secondary executive sign-off. He was only a Director of Sales. He didn't have the clearance to authorize seven-figure vendor payouts alone.
I scrolled down to the digital signature block on the Apex invoices.
There were two names. The first was Harrison's. The second signature belonged to Chloe Adams. The junior marketing executive.
Suddenly, the affair made complete sense. Harrison wasn't just sleeping with Chloe because she was young and flashy. He was sleeping with her because her department had secondary budget approval for regional promotions. He was using her security clearance to bypass Vanguard's financial safeguards. They were in this together.
The Maybach descended into the secure underground garage of the Lakeview high-rise. The heavy steel gates closed behind us, shutting out the storm.
I stepped out of the car, my ruined maternity dress clinging to my legs. The private elevator recognized my biometric scan and whisked us silently to the seventy-second floor.
When the doors opened into the penthouse, the floor-to-ceiling windows offered a breathtaking, panoramic view of the Chicago skyline. The city glittered below, vast and electric. This was my city. My empire.
I walked straight to the massive mahogany desk in the center of the study.
"Bring me the physical hard copies of the Midwest division's quarterly loan authorizations," I ordered Marcus. "If he's stealing four million, he has a hole in his division's budget. He has to be covering it up somehow before the board meeting tomorrow."
Marcus nodded and stepped into the secure communications room.
I sat in the heavy leather executive chair. I thought about the way Harrison had sneered at me on the porch. A useless freeloader. A dead weight. He had looked at me as if I were garbage to be discarded on his way to the top.
Ten minutes later, Marcus walked back into the study. He didn't look angry. He looked deeply, uncharacteristically concerned. He placed a single physical folder on the desk in front of me.
"Ms. Vance," Marcus said quietly. "We found how he's covering the missing four million. He took out an emergency corporate bridge loan against Vanguard's regional assets. It was approved yesterday."
"How is that possible?" I demanded, opening the folder. "A bridge loan requires approval from a senior shareholder. He doesn't have access to the board."
"Look at the guarantor signature on the final page," Marcus said.
I flipped to the back of the heavy legal contract. My eyes locked onto the bottom line.
There, signed in blue ink, was a name.
Nora Vance.
The room began to spin. The air vanished from my lungs.
He hadn't forged his own name. He had somehow found my maiden name, likely digging through my old mail, and forged it as a civilian guarantor, completely unaware that Nora Vance actually owned the entire corporation.
He didn't just cheat on me. He hadn't just stolen money. He had legally framed me. If the corporate audit caught the missing four million, the paper trail wouldn't lead to Harrison. It would lead directly to me, the "freelance graphic designer" wife. He was setting me up to take the fall for federal corporate fraud.
"Ma'am?" Marcus asked, stepping closer as I gripped the edge of the desk.