[COMPLETED] The Chicago Millionaire Learned His Wife Had Divorced Him While His Mistress Slept Beside Him—Then Her Lawyer Revealed One More Secret

I waited for Patricia to finish her sentence.

Madison sat upright in my bed, the white sheet gathered beneath her chin. She was watching my face as though she could hear the conversation through the phone.

"The woman in your bedroom," Patricia said, "has received payments from Meridian Advisory. Meridian represents the group attempting to purchase your riverfront hotel properties."

I looked at Madison.

She lifted her eyebrows. A small, questioning movement. The expression I'd once mistaken for innocence.

"How would Claire know that?" I asked.

"My client provided documents during the divorce proceedings. I am advising you to speak with your own attorney about them."

"Is Madison involved in the acquisition?"

"I can't characterize her role beyond the documents. And, Mr. Morgan, the instructions about contacting Claire remain in place."

I opened my mouth to argue. Patricia continued before I could.

"She wants no contact. Please respect that."

The call ended.

For a moment I remained beside the windows, hearing the faint mechanical hum of the penthouse and the distant traffic below. I was accustomed to conversations ending when I dismissed someone. This one had ended because there was nothing more I was entitled to demand.

"Daniel?" Madison said. "Who was that?"

I lowered the phone.

"Claire's attorney."

Her fingers tightened on the sheet.

"Why is Claire calling you through a lawyer?"

"Because we're divorced."

Madison stared at me.

"What?"

"Yesterday. The judgment was entered yesterday."

She shook her head, once. Then she began to speak, stopped, and glanced at the burgundy dress lying on the carpet. A perfectly ordinary glance that suddenly seemed like an attempt to calculate an exit.

"Do you know Meridian Advisory?" I asked.

Her eyes moved back to mine.

"It's a consulting company. Why?"

"Have they paid you?"

A pause.

"I've done freelance work."

"For Meridian?"

"Daniel, what's going on?"

"I'm asking you a simple question."

"And you're asking it like I'm on trial."

I almost said that I could have her investigated before lunch. The words were ready, familiar, effortless. Then Patricia's warning came back to me. Claire had anticipated precisely that impulse.

I took a step away from the bed.

"Get dressed. I'd like you to leave."

Madison's face changed. Not with outrage. With a kind of disappointment that struck me as disturbingly practiced.

"Are you blaming me because Claire left?"

"Claire didn't leave because of a consultant. She left because I betrayed her. That part is mine. But I need to know who else has been using my decisions."

She reached for her dress without answering.

I turned toward the kitchen counter. The two whiskey glasses were still there. One had the faint imprint of her lipstick. Last night I'd considered those glasses evidence of a harmless private pleasure. This morning they looked like evidence of just how willingly I'd stopped paying attention.

I called Rebecca Shaw, my outside litigation attorney, not the acquisition counsel who handled my corporate paperwork. She answered on the second ring.

"Daniel. It's early."

"Pull the divorce docket. Every filing, every service record, every document with my signature. I also want an independent review of Meridian Advisory and any payments connected to them."

"Why Meridian?"

"I have reason to believe someone associated with them is sleeping in my home."

Rebecca didn't ask for details.

"Preserve your messages and records. Don't confront employees or access anyone else's private devices. And don't ask your security team to find Claire."

"You heard about the divorce already?"

"Your counsel received the judgment. I assumed you knew."

That stung more than it should have. Everybody with a professional obligation to me seemed to know something I didn't.

"I didn't," I said.

Rebecca's voice softened, but only slightly.

"Then we're going to start with facts."

Madison emerged from the bedroom wearing the burgundy dress and carrying her heels. Her hair was loose over one shoulder. She stopped when she saw me on the phone.

"I'll have a car sent for you," I said when Rebecca had finished giving instructions.

"I can get my own."

"Then do that."

Madison opened her mouth. She seemed about to say something important. Instead she picked up her bag from the sofa and walked toward the door.

"I never told you to divorce Claire," she said.

"I know."

"And I didn't make you ignore her."

I looked directly at her.

"I know that too."

She left.

The apartment grew very quiet.

I went into the bedroom and looked at the neatly made side of the bed that had once belonged to Claire. I couldn't remember the last evening she'd slept there while I was home. I could remember the emerald earrings I'd sent on her birthday, the assistant I'd told to arrange delivery, the moment I'd checked the purchase price and decided it was enough.

I hadn't even called.

My phone lit up with an incoming message from Graham Price, my chief financial officer and the man I'd trusted with most of my expansion plans.

Board materials are ready. Meridian wants a decision before Friday.

I read it twice.

Meridian.

The group trying to buy my riverfront properties. The firm paying Madison. The name sitting at the center of a transaction Graham had been pushing for weeks.

Another message followed.

Did you sign the revised authorization packet in New York?

I remembered the acquisition trip. Dinner. Drinks. A folder of documents on my phone, each one presented as routine.

My stomach tightened.

Instead of answering Graham, I forwarded his messages to Rebecca.

Five minutes later she called.

"Don't sign anything else," she said. "Not until I see the original files."

"What did you find?"

"An acknowledgment. Your electronic signature. And a date from your New York trip. The divorce documents appear to have been processed through your ordinary counsel channel."

I looked toward the kitchen, where the empty glasses were still waiting to be collected.

"And the Meridian documents?"

"That's what worries me. Your corporate office sent two document packets for signature within hours of each other."

"What was in the second one?"

Rebecca took a breath.

"I don't know yet. Graham's team controls the file archive."