He Chose Mistress, I Chose Empire novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Choice
Haddie finds her husband's assistant in her bed during his investor party, asks him to choose in front of everyone, and when he picks the mistress she has her father's moving crew strip the mansion, then finds a rental agreement for a unit in her own warehouse in the mistress's name.
I only went upstairs because the back fell off my earring.
Downstairs, forty investors were drinking champagne under a chandelier I had paid for.
The bedroom door was shut. I never shut that door.
I opened it.
Brantley's assistant was sitting on my side of the bed in my silk robe, painting her toenails pink.
My husband stood at the mirror, tucking in his shirt.
He saw me in the glass. He didn't turn around.
"Haddie. Shut the door. People can hear."
Shayla Rhoads blew on her toes and smiled at me.
"Hi, Mrs. Talmadge. I love this robe."
She had been his assistant for two years.
I sent her flowers when her cat died.
There was a wet pink smear on my white duvet.
I didn't cry. I didn't throw the lamp.
I found the earring back on the carpet, put it in, and went downstairs.
The party was for Talmadge Landing, the tower Brantley wanted to build on the river.
Thirty-eight floors. Ninety million dollars of other people's money.
A string quartet was playing in the front hall.
His mother, Opaline, stood by the fireplace in her pearls, telling a banker's wife how hard it was to find good help.
I picked up a champagne flute and tapped it with a dessert fork.
Forty faces turned.
Brantley came down the staircase fast, fixing a cufflink. Shayla came down behind him in her black dress, carrying her shoes.
"My husband has something to tell you all," I said.
He laughed and put his arm around my waist.
"My wife's had one glass too many."
"I haven't had any. I drove a moving truck for six years. I don't drink at work."
A few people laughed. Opaline didn't.
I turned and looked up at him.
"Your assistant is upstairs in my robe. So I'm going to ask you one question, and I'll only ask it once."
The quartet stopped playing.
"Her or me. Right now. In front of everybody."
His fingers dug into my side.
He bent his head so only I could hear.
"Don't you dare do this tonight. These people are worth ninety million dollars."
"Then answer fast."
He straightened up and gave the room his best smile.
"Shayla is essential to this company," he said. "She stays. Haddie, go upstairs and lie down."
Opaline raised her glass half an inch.
Shayla tucked her hair behind her ear.
So that was it. He had chosen.
"Okay," I said.
I took my phone out of my clutch and called the only number I knew by heart besides my own.
Wilma Shrum answered on the second ring.
She had run my father's office for thirty years. She had never once asked me why I was calling.
"Wilma. How many men can you get to Belle Meade in forty minutes?"
"Six. And both trucks."
"Bring the piano board. And every dolly we own."
"What are we moving, honey?"
"Everything I paid for."
Brantley laughed out loud. A few investors laughed with him, a little nervously.
"She's calling her daddy's moving company," he told the room. "On a Saturday night. Two trucks, folks."
"It's my moving company now," I said. "And two is enough."
Six years ago, this house was empty.
Opaline had walked me through it and called it a blank canvas for a wife.
My father died a year later and left me everything he had.
I spent six hundred thousand dollars of it filling these rooms for Brantley.
The rugs. The dining table for twenty. Fourteen paintings. The Steinway. My father's walnut desk.
I kept every receipt in a blue binder.
My father taught me that. Inventory everything.
Thirty-eight minutes later, two white trucks backed up the drive with KITT MOVING & STORAGE on the sides in red letters.
Wilma came through the front door in her work jacket with her reading glasses on a cord.
She took one look at Shayla's bare feet and handed me a clipboard.
"Where do you want us to start?"
"Front hall. Then out."
The crew went to work around the party.
Two men lifted the hall rug while a banker was still standing on the end of it.
The paintings came down the grand staircase one by one, wrapped in gray blankets.
A woman in diamonds clutched her purse when they took the sofa out from under her.
Opaline put her hand flat on the mahogany sideboard.
"That stays. It's a Talmadge family piece."
"I bought it at an estate sale in Franklin," I said. "In 2021. For nine hundred dollars."
Somebody near the bar snorted into his drink.
Opaline took her hand away.
Brantley caught my arm at the foot of the stairs.
"You walk out of here, you walk out with nothing. This house is mine."
"Keep it," I said. "It's going to echo."
They rolled the Steinway past him on its board.
Wilma looked up at the chandelier. "You want that too?"
"Leave it. He'll need something to look at."
We left him one folding chair. It came with the house.
The investors started finding their coats.
Shayla was sitting on the bottom stair, still holding her shoes, finally not smiling.
Wilma came out of the study last, carrying a box of things from my father's desk drawers.
She stopped beside me on the porch and held out a folded paper.
"Honey. This was in your daddy's desk. It's one of ours."
It was a rental agreement on our own Kitt letterhead.
Climate unit. Second floor. Unit 114.
Seven months paid, by card, from Talmadge Riverside LLC.
The tenant's name was printed at the bottom.
Shayla Rhoads.
My husband had been hiding something for seven months.
In my own warehouse.
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