Chapter 17 - THE WOMAN ON TELEVISION
By ten thirty, the internet hated me.
That was not an exaggeration.
Clips of Jasmine's interview spread across every platform faster than the board could issue corrections.
She cried carefully.
She paused before answering difficult questions.
She described herself as a young executive who had fallen in love with a powerful married man during a period when he told her his marriage was ending.
That part was believable because it was partly true.
She described Aaron as controlling.
Also partly true.
She said he promised her equity, pressured her to work impossible hours, and blurred professional and personal boundaries.
Also true.
Then she described me.
"Alyssa never saw me as a person."
She looked down at her hands.
"To her, I was someone beneath her who needed to be put back in my place."
The interviewer asked about the company investigation.
Jasmine shook her head.
"I can't discuss legal matters in detail."
Then she discussed them anyway.
She said the offshore structure had been created at Aaron's direction.
She said executives regularly used delegated signatures.
She said everyone knew Alyssa retained hidden power over the company and had threatened to use it if Aaron ever left her.
That was a lie.
Then the interviewer asked about the pregnancy.
Jasmine's eyes filled.
She placed one hand over her abdomen.
"I lost the baby two days ago."
The interviewer whispered that she was sorry.
Jasmine nodded.
"The stress was overwhelming."
Then came the sentence that changed public outrage into something uglier.
"I believe Alyssa wanted me to lose everything."
My phone began filling with messages from people I did not know.
Some called me jealous.
Some called me cruel.
Some said money had allowed me to terrorize a pregnant woman.
A photograph of me raising my glass after Aaron received the Clause 14 notice was reposted beside the phrase billionaire wife celebrates mistress's miscarriage.
The photograph had been taken before I knew Jasmine claimed to be pregnant.
That did not matter online.
Timing was less satisfying than anger.
Leah called me crying.
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't read it."
"People are saying horrible things."
"Leah."
"What?"
"Go home to your children."
"But I can tell people what happened on the plane."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because you work for the company, and I won't let Jasmine drag employees into my divorce."
Leah went quiet.
"She lied about the baby."
"The evidence will show that."
"When?"
That was the problem.
Truth had a process.
A lie had a camera.
At noon, Aaron called a press conference against his lawyers' advice.
I learned about it three minutes before he walked to a podium outside Blackwood Ridge.
Rebecca turned on the television in my suite.
Aaron looked exhausted.
No makeup could hide it.
Reporters shouted questions.
He raised one hand.
"I have a short statement."
The crowd quieted.
"I had an inappropriate personal relationship with Jasmine Vale while I was married."
My chest tightened.
It was the first time he had admitted it publicly.
"I concealed that relationship from my wife, my board, and people who trusted me."
Cameras clicked.
"I also supported a corporate restructuring that would have significantly reduced voting rights held by my wife's family trust."
A reporter shouted, "Did Alyssa know?"
Aaron looked directly at the camera.
"No."
The answer was immediate.
"Did she approve the offshore transfers?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"Did you?"
"Not to my knowledge."
Another reporter shouted about Jasmine's miscarriage.
Aaron's face changed.
His lawyers moved beside the podium.
He ignored them.
"I need to be very clear about something."
He swallowed.
"I have seen evidence indicating that Jasmine's pregnancy claim was fabricated before it was ever presented to me."
The crowd erupted.
Reporters shouted over one another.
Aaron continued.
"I never attended a medical appointment."
"I was shown documents I now have reason to believe were false."
"I am not making any statement about Ms. Vale's current medical claims, but I will not allow my wife to be blamed for the loss of a pregnancy that evidence suggests did not exist."
I stared at the television.
Rebecca did too.
"His lawyers are going to kill him," she said.
"Probably."
But for the first time all weekend, Aaron had chosen a truth that hurt him because letting the lie stand would hurt me more.
It did not save our marriage.
It did not erase anything.
But it mattered.
Jasmine's attorney issued a statement within twenty minutes accusing Aaron of retaliating against a former employee.
Then they released screenshots.
Some were real.
Aaron telling Jasmine he loved her.
Aaron saying he would find a way to make the Whitmore trust irrelevant.
Aaron saying he was tired of pretending at home.
Each one cut.
I stopped reading after the fifth.
Rebecca took my phone away.
"Enough."
"I need to know what's out there."
"Your legal team needs to know. You don't need to bleed through every screenshot personally."
I let her keep the phone.
At three, the forensic team verified that Jasmine's clinic letter had been created from a document template downloaded from a graphic-design site.
The file existed on her laptop weeks before she told Aaron she was pregnant.
At four, they found a calendar entry titled ULTRASOUND ASSET.
Attached was an image purchased from a medical stock library through a prepaid card.
At five, they found the nursery order.
The first design deposit had been placed nine days before Jasmine's alleged conception date based on the timeline she had given Aaron.
The nursery had never been evidence of a baby.
It had been a prop.
At six, Melissa received a subpoena request from investigators for the laptop image, the false clinic file, and the certificate logs.
At seven, Jasmine's interview disappeared from the network's website.
At seven thirty, the network posted an editor's note saying medical claims made during the interview were under review.
The internet did not apologize.
It simply found something new to argue about.
I thought that would be the end of the day's surprises.
It was not.
At eight fifteen, Rebecca received the first draft of Aaron's response to my divorce petition.
She read it in silence.
Then she swore.
I looked up.
"What?"
"His lawyers are challenging the trust's control rights as part of the marital-property case."
I stared at her.
"He told me this morning he understood what he did."
"His litigation team apparently has a different understanding."
"What are they arguing?"
"That the Clause 14 voting rights were effectively extinguished by subsequent corporate actions and that your invocation during a marital breakdown creates an improper conflict."
I laughed without humor.
"So we're back to jealous wife."
"In more expensive language."
My chest tightened.
I had expected the divorce fight.
I had not expected him to use it to attack the same rights he had just admitted trying to dilute.
"Call him."
Rebecca shook her head.
"Bad idea."
"Then call his lawyer."
"That I will do."
Before she could, someone knocked.
Aaron stood outside.
He held a copy of the filing.
His face was furious.
"I didn't authorize this argument."
Rebecca looked at him.
"Your name is on it."
"My litigation team filed a preservation response."
"Preservation responses do not accidentally seek a declaration that my client's voting rights are invalid."
Aaron walked inside.
"I told them to protect my position in the divorce."
I looked at him.
"And they knew exactly what your position was because you've spent years telling everyone my rights are a leash."
He closed his eyes.
"I'll withdraw that part."
"Will you?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
He stared at me.
"Because I was wrong."
The words were simple.
I wanted to trust them.
That was the danger.
Rebecca's phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed almost immediately.
"When?"
A pause.
"Send it to me."
She ended the call.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The corporate archive team found a 2021 amendment to the bank financing package."
Aaron frowned.
"What amendment?"
Rebecca looked at him.
"One you signed."
She opened the email that had just arrived.
The document was titled LEGACY RIGHTS CONFIRMATION.
It expressly reaffirmed that Sections 11 through 16 of the 2018 Whitmore agreement remained in full force.
Clause 14 was Section 14.
Aaron stared at his own signature.
He had reaffirmed the provision only five years earlier to satisfy a lender who wanted certainty around the patent license.
He had not merely forgotten Clause 14.
He had preserved it when preserving it benefited him.
Rebecca looked at him.
"Your lawyers can argue what they like."
Then she turned the page toward me.
"But this ends the extinction theory."
Aaron sat down slowly.
"Withdraw it," he said.
Rebecca raised an eyebrow.
"I'm not your counsel."
He took out his phone.
"I know."
He called his lawyer in front of us.
"Remove the trust challenge from the response."
A pause.
"No."
Another pause.
"I don't care if it weakens leverage."
He looked at me.
"Take it out."
He ended the call.
I said nothing.
He stood.
"You don't owe me anything for that."
"Good."
He almost smiled.
"I deserved that."
"Yes."
He walked toward the door.
Then he stopped.
"Tomorrow, the board is voting on whether to remove me permanently."
I had not known the vote had been scheduled.
"What are you going to do?"
He looked back.
"For the first time in a long time, I'm going to let them vote without telling anyone what they owe me."
He left.
Rebecca waited until the door closed.
"Do you believe him?"
May you like
I looked at the unsigned copy of our divorce petition on the table.
"I believe the vote will tell me more than the sentence."
