He Left My Bed for His Secretary, So I Took His Brother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Town Hall

Leah plays the garage video on the lobby screen in front of four hundred employees. Preston answers calmly: she signed a postnup and gets nothing.

On Monday at nine, four hundred employees of Corbin Freight stood in the lobby for the quarterly town hall.

I walked in through the front doors with my founder's badge on a lanyard.

I had not been inside the building in two years. Preston said I made the staff nervous.

The guard at the desk looked at the badge and stepped aside without a word.

At the far end, Preston stood on a low stage in a navy suit, smiling at a chart.

"Record quarter," he said. "Up thirty-one percent."

The crowd clapped.

In the front row sat Mallory Quince in a pale pink suit, with her hands folded in her lap.

She looked sweet, and she looked scared, and she clapped the loudest.

I went straight to the audio technician at the side of the stage, a heavy kid in a gray hoodie.

"I need to plug into the big screen," I said.

He frowned. "Ma'am, the schedule is locked."

"I'm Leah Sutherland. My name is on the founding papers. Plug me in."

He looked at my badge. He looked at the stage.

Then he took my cable.

On the screen behind Preston, the chart vanished.

My phone's home screen filled the wall, ten feet wide.

Preston turned around. He saw it and stopped smiling.

"Leah," he said into the microphone, very softly. "Not now."

I pressed play.

The garage appeared, with its buzzing light.

My husband's face appeared. His voice filled the lobby.

"Mallory is young. She's insecure. She's terrified that I'll fall in love with your body again."

Nobody breathed.

"You're sleeping with her," said my voice from the speakers.

"Leah, look at yourself. You're thirty-six. She's twenty-six, and she's bright and fresh. Why would I ever settle for something withered and spent when I can have her?"

I stopped the video.

Four hundred people stared at the screen. Then they stared at the man on the stage.

Mallory slid down in her chair and covered her face with both hands.

"Turn that off," Preston said.

The technician didn't touch anything.

I took the microphone from its stand on the floor.

"Good morning. I'm Leah Sutherland, Preston's wife of ten years and a founder of this company. I put my father's house money into the first server in this building's basement."

My voice shook on the first sentence. After that it held.

"Last night was our anniversary. He left our bed at midnight for his secretary. Last night, after the garage, I looked at the company card."

I turned to the room.

"For three years Corbin Freight has paid twenty-six thousand dollars a month for an apartment on the Gold Coast. It is not client housing. It is hers."

A woman near the front said, "Oh my God."

Somebody in the back started filming. Then three more phones came up. Then thirty.

Preston came down off the stage fast.

"That is a private matter," he said, in the voice he used on investors. "I'll ask everyone to go back to work."

"It isn't private," I said. "It was your investors' money."

At the side door a gray-haired man in a charcoal suit stopped with his hand on the push bar.

That was the chair of the board. He had a seat at every one of Preston's dinners.

He looked at the screen. He looked at Preston.

He said nothing at all and walked out.

I handed the microphone to the technician.

"Thank you," I said.

He nodded. His eyes were wet.

Mallory stood up. Her pink suit was shaking.

"Mrs. Corbin," she whispered, "I never meant for you to find out like this."

"Like what?" I asked. "On time?"

Somebody laughed in the crowd and stopped.

Mallory's tears came faster. Every phone in the room caught them.

"Leah." Preston was in front of me now, close enough that I could smell his cologne.

His face was composed again. His gray eyes were cold.

"Walk out with me," he said quietly. "We'll talk upstairs."

"No."

"You're humiliating yourself."

"You humiliated me first. I just did it where people could see."

He didn't blink.

I said, "I'm filing for divorce today. I'm taking my half of the house. I'm taking the shares I paid for. And I'm taking the money in the accounts that I balanced for ten years."

I thought he would shout.

Instead the corner of his mouth lifted, very slightly.

It was the smile he wore when a deal was already closed.

"You can file," he said. "That's your right."

He took a half step toward me and lowered his voice so only I could hear.

"But you signed a postnuptial agreement in 2019, Leah. You waived everything. The house, the shares, the accounts."

I stared at him.

"I never signed anything like that."

"Your signature is on every page," Preston said. "You get nothing."

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