Chapter 3 - PLAYING THE DUTIFUL WIFE
The smell of disinfectant and stale flowers hit me as I walked into Room 412 of St. Mary Care Center the following morning.
Alistair was sitting up in bed, a neck brace stabilizing his posture, sipping orange juice through a straw. Sitting beside him, peeling an apple with delicate precision, was his mother, Martha.
When I stepped through the door carrying a thermos of homemade broth and a fresh change of clothes, both of them froze like deer caught in high beams.
"Jacqueline!" Martha said, her voice dripping with artificial warmth as she quickly stood up. "Darling, you look exhausted. You shouldn't have driven back out here in the rain."
"Nonsense, Martha," I said, offering a sweet, tired smile as I set the thermos on the bedside table. "Alistair is my husband. Where else would I be?"
I leaned down and kissed Alistair lightly on the forehead. I felt him flinch—a subtle, involuntary muscle twitch—but I acted completely oblivious.
"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" I asked, stroking his hair with practicing tenderness. "The doctor said your concussion was moderate, but you should be discharged by tomorrow."
"I'm... I'm feeling better," Alistair stammered, his eyes darting nervously between me and his mother. He was searching my face, desperately trying to gauge if I knew anything, if I had suspected anything after last night's scene. "Jacqueline... about last night..."
"Oh, don't worry about last night," I interrupted smoothly, pulling up a chair and taking his hand. His palm was clammy. "I was just so overwhelmed seeing you in that bed. The nurse mentioned a woman and a child, but Martha explained everything after you drifted off to sleep."
Martha cleared her throat loudly, adjusting her cardigan. "Yes! As I told you, Paige is... well, she's the daughter of an old family friend. Alistair has been helping her financially since her father passed away. The little boy... he just gets confused and calls all of Alistair's male friends 'Daddy'."
It was such a pathetic, insulted-intelligence lie that I almost wanted to laugh in her face. Martha Finch was a woman who had sneered at me during every Thanksgiving dinner for seven years, constantly reminding me that I worked "too many hours" and wasn't providing Alistair with a proper domestic home. All the while, she had been babysitting her secret grandson in an Edina townhouse purchased with my stolen equity.
"Of course," I said, looking Martha dead in the eye with complete, innocent sincerity. "It's so noble of Alistair to take care of a fatherless child. You really have a heart of gold, honey."
Alistair swallowed hard, visible relief washing over his pale face. He actually believed it. He was so arrogant, so blinded by his own perceived intelligence, that he truly believed I had swallowed their absurd cover story.
"I just want to get back to work, Jackie," Alistair said, trying to shift the conversation. "The Series B funding round with the offshore investors closes in four days. If I'm not at my desk to sign the debt guarantees, the whole deal falls through."
There it was. The hook.
"Oh, Alistair, you can't think about business right now," I chided gently, taking his briefcase from the corner of the room. "You need rest. In fact, I saw those papers on your office desk before I left this morning."
Alistair's eyes widened slightly. "You did?"
"Yes. The personal liability guarantees for the $5 million loan from Apex Holdings," I said, referencing the shell company I now knew belonged to his mistress. "You left them out. I brought them with me so you wouldn't stress."
I opened my tote bag and pulled out the thick legal stack.
Alistair reached for them with ravenous, poorly concealed eagerness. "Thank God. If you can just sign page twelve as my spousal guarantor, I can have my assistant scan them back to the bank today."
I looked down at page twelve. The line for my signature was marked with a yellow 'Sign Here' sticky note.
If I signed this, I would personally guarantee $5 million of debt defaulted by Finch Synergy. When Alistair transferred the cash to the Caymans and declared bankruptcy, the creditors would come after me. They would take my law firm partnership equity, my savings, and my future.
I pulled a pen from my purse, clicked it, and hovered the tip over the paper.
Alistair held his breath. Martha leaned forward, her eyes glinting with predatory anticipation.
"You know, Alistair," I said softly, pausing with the pen millimeters from the paper, "I was reading over the liability clauses this morning."
Alistair's smile faltered. "What about them? It's standard boilerplate language, Jackie. You know how these commercial loans work."
"Usually, yes," I replied, turning my gaze to him with a slow, deliberate tilt of my head. "But clause 14B states that in the event of insolvency, the debt defaults directly to the guarantor's individual assets before hitting the corporate entities. That's unusual for a Series B institutional round. Usually, the venture firm takes the primary risk."
A flick of panic crossed Alistair's eyes. "My legal team drafted that. It's... it's what the investors insisted on because of market volatility."
"Really?" I smiled warmly. "Well, as a divorce attorney, I'm used to reviewing agreements. But since this is commercial debt, I think it's best if I run it past Marcus Vance at my firm. He heads our corporate litigation department. I'll have him do a quick compliance review today, and once he gives the green light, I'll sign it."
"No!" Alistair blurted out, a little too loudly.
Martha flinched. Alistair quickly caught himself, trying to soften his tone. "I mean... Jackie, there's no time for that. The funding window closes at 5:00 PM tomorrow. If your firm starts picking apart the covenants, the investors will pull out. Don't you trust me?"
Don't you trust me?
The audacity of those four words, spoken by a man who had forged my name, fathered a secret child, and was actively trying to ruin my life, almost broke my composure.
"Of course I trust you, Alistair," I said, sliding the document back into my bag and zipping it closed. "Which is why I'm sure an extra twenty-four hours won't hurt. I'll handle Marcus personally. In the meantime, you need to rest."
I stood up, kissed his forehead once more, and turned to Martha.
"Martha, dear, why don't you come home with me tonight? I'm sure you're exhausted from sitting in the ICU. I can cook us dinner, and we can catch up on... family matters."
May you like
Martha looked terrified. "Oh, no, Jacqueline, I couldn't possibly—"
"I insist," I said, my voice dropping into the smooth, unyielding tone I used when deposing hostile witnesses in court. "After all, we're family. And family shouldn't have any secrets from each other, right?"
