I felt suddenly cold. “You’re saying the baby might not be Trent’s?”
“It’s possible, but we don’t have a paternity test. What matters is that Brooke hid a relationship that continues to this day.”
Just then, another message appeared on my phone.
Tomorrow at eleven we’ll be in front of OUR house. You’d better have the keys ready.
I studied the evidence covering my desk. Trent believed he had successfully taken his wife’s wealth. His parents assumed they had exchanged me for a more compliant daughter-in-law. Brooke imagined she was about to wed the owner of a company worth millions.
None of them suspected that, within hours, their overlapping lies would start collapsing under their own weight.
PART 3
By ten-thirty on Friday morning, I was seated in one of our office conference rooms, working at my computer with coffee, contracts, and Gavin’s latest report on the house laid out nearby.
Trent had collected his belongings the previous evening, certain he would return with Brooke to settle in permanently. The company had therefore regained control of the gate codes and stationed security at the property. The Mercedes, too, had been returned to our corporate vehicle fleet.
At precisely eleven, a hired car stopped outside the house. Trent emerged wearing an expensive designer shirt and the watch purchased with my credit card. Brooke followed. She was twenty-seven, nearly seven months pregnant, elegantly dressed, and visibly delighted by the sight of the property.
Through the exterior surveillance feed, I heard him greet her. “Welcome home, babe. This is where our son will grow up.”
She rested her palm on her stomach. “It’s gorgeous. Your ex-wife really had great taste.”
He chuckled. “The only good thing she ever did was work so we could enjoy it.”
His remark still hurt. Our divorce hadn’t even been finalized, yet he was already ridiculing everything I’d done to support us.
Trent entered his old code into the gate keypad. The indicator flashed red. He tried a second time, with no success, then pressed the intercom impatiently. A security guard came from the booth and handed him the written notice Gavin had previously delivered.
“Mr. Trent, this property belongs to a corporation. Your access authorization was withdrawn, and you’ve already received notice.”
Trent’s face flushed. “I’m the owner of this house!”
“The title documents say otherwise, sir.”
Brooke’s excitement disappeared. “Trent, what’s going on?”
He took out his phone and called me. I picked up on his second attempt.
“Harper, stop being ridiculous. I’m standing in front of my house and your people won’t let me in.”
“It’s not your house, Trent.”
“I’m your husband!”
“And you filed for divorce. Besides, marriage never made you the owner of my company’s assets.”
He paused. “That’s a lie.”
“The deed is in the name of Axis Digital LLC, the company I founded before I met you. Same with the SUV. Check the documents with your lawyer.”
His breathing became audible. “Then give me money to buy another house.”
“I won’t finance the life you built by deceiving me.”
I disconnected the call.
On the security footage, Brooke began confronting him. Trent then rushed her to a different Scottsdale property where my company maintained temporary apartments for employees moving from other cities. He attempted to enter using an outdated company access card, which no longer worked. The building manager informed him that he held no lease, employment status, or permission to enter.
For the first time, Brooke heard his claims contradicted outright. “You’re not the CEO of Axis Digital?”
Trent avoided her eyes. “It’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated? Your mom told me you founded that company.”
“My wife handled some things.”
The manager intervened. “The founder and CEO is Ms. Harper Lawson. You’re not on our staff roster.”
Brooke stepped back, stunned. By that afternoon, she understood that the man she’d planned to marry possessed neither the mansion nor the SUV nor the vast fortune he had described.
And there were more revelations ahead.
At four o’clock, Gloria phoned, crying. “Harper, please, we need to talk. The bank blocked a card and Trent says you took everything from us.”
“That card belongs to my personal account. Nobody was authorized to use it.”
“But we’re family.”
“You stopped treating me like family long before I decided on a divorce.”
Between sobs, she admitted another problem. “We have a huge problem. We already paid the deposit on the venue for the wedding, and we borrowed money from several relatives.”
“How much?”
“Almost fifty thousand dollars.”
I fell silent. They had committed almost fifty thousand dollars to celebrating my husband’s wedding to the woman whose expenses he’d secretly been paying with my money.
“Who was going to pay that money, Gloria?”
“Trent said he’d get a share of your company.”
“And you believed him?”
She offered no reply. I finally voiced the question that had haunted me since discovering the affair. “How long did you know Trent had another woman?”
She drew a long breath. “Brooke is a good girl. I just wanted my son to have a real family.”
With that, my last affectionate memory of Gloria seemed to break. For five years I’d bought her prescriptions, accompanied her to medical appointments, paid for repairs to her home, and regarded her as another mother. All that time, while I exhausted myself working, she had actively helped her son maintain his affair.
“I wanted a real family too, Gloria,” I said. “I thought you were part of it.”
My voice finally faltered. “But you never loved me like a daughter. You only wanted the money I could give you.”
She began apologizing, but the damage was done. “Everything about the invoices and the false documents will be handled through the attorneys. Don’t ask me for money again.”
After hanging up, I locked myself in the office restroom and cried for several minutes. I wasn’t mourning Trent. I was grieving the woman who’d blamed herself for not being loving enough, who had sacrificed years trying to earn genuine affection through endless generosity.
When I emerged, Joni was there with water. “You don’t have to prove anything else to them, Harper.”
“I know. But now I have to protect what we built.”
During the weeks that followed, Gavin assembled the documentation required for formal complaints. A forensic document specialist examined the guaranty on Brooke’s lease and identified important discrepancies between my genuine signature and the imitation. We uncovered additional invoices for technology services my company had never purchased. Several vendor details connected to individuals associated with Trent, allowing us to examine payments apparently supported by falsified documents. Our concerns were no longer merely about questionable family expenses; they now rested on identifiable business transactions and contracts.
Trent began phoning every day. His approach shifted from insults to threats of litigation, and eventually to requests for cash.
“Harper, Brooke is desperate. We have nowhere to live like before.”
“You have a job and a family. Organize your life with your own resources.”
“I can’t support her on a thousand dollars a month!”
“Then you shouldn’t have promised her a millionaire’s life.”
A week later, an unexpected request arrived from Brooke. She wanted to speak with me. I agreed to meet at Gavin’s office, with my lawyer present. She came without makeup, wearing plain clothing, her eyes swollen from crying. She looked nothing like the woman who had posed with luxury handbags in photographs.
“I didn’t know Trent wasn’t the owner of the company,” she said as soon as she sat down.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you knew he was married.”
Brooke dropped her gaze. “His mother told me you two had been emotionally separated for years. She said you humiliated him for earning less.”
