My Husband Secretly Forged Our Divorce Papers — So I Stripped Him Of His Entire Company

Part 1

I stood outside the CEO’s office clutching a box of expensive pecan pralines.

My heels sank silently into the thick carpet of the twenty-sixth floor.

The frosted glass door was cracked open just a sliver.

I had returned from Seattle a day early to surprise the man I loved.

Next week was our tenth wedding anniversary.

Ten years was a long time to pour your entire soul into building a life with someone.

Starting Foster Holdings meant operating out of a cramped four-hundred-square-foot room down a sketchy alley.

To keep the lights on during those first brutal years, I even sold the modest home my mother had left me.

Back then, Craig was just a struggling, unemployed sales manager with a smooth voice.

He held me in our sweltering apartment and swore he would spend his life protecting me.

I believed every single word that tumbled from his mouth.

When the company exploded into a massive success, I gave him the title of CEO.

I wanted him to hold his head high around his judgemental family.

I even transferred a massive portion of my shares to him.

He had complained that he felt like a fraud riding his powerful wife’s coattails.

I took the brutal client rejections and the sleepless nights while he wore tailored suits to fancy signing ceremonies.

Now, standing outside his door, I expected to see him working late.

I planned to wrap my arms around his shoulders and tell him I finally closed our biggest contract.

Instead, a soft, coquettish laugh drifted through the narrow gap.

My hand froze mere inches from the brass doorknob.

I peered through the crack and saw Craig standing by his mahogany desk.

His tie was discarded on a leather chair, and the top buttons of his crisp dress shirt were undone.

Heather, his young private secretary, stood impossibly close to him.

Her pale hands were slowly adjusting his belt.

Craig automatically shifted his weight backward to let her easily adjust the leather strap.

Neither of them even broke conversation as she smoothed the fabric of his trousers.

I could not hear the hum of the city traffic below or the rush of the air conditioning.

I could only hear my own pulse hammering a violent rhythm against my eardrums.

Craig tilted his head back and let out a lazy, satisfied chuckle.

He asked her if she was done yet.

He warned her that someone might walk in if she moved that slowly.

Heather simply giggled and traced a finger down his chest.

She asked him if the big, powerful CEO was actually scared of getting caught.

Craig pulled her closer by the waist.

He leaned down to whisper in her ear.

The hallway was completely silent, so his words carried perfectly through the crack in the door.

“Don’t worry, my wife doesn’t even know I finalized the divorce papers.”

He actually smiled as he said it.

“She still thinks she is the legitimate Mrs. Miller.”

The box of pralines nearly slipped from my trembling fingers.

Divorce papers?

We had never even discussed a separation, let alone signed any legal documents.

No one in this state could secretly divorce a living, present spouse without a court appearance.

The gold ribbon on the pastry box suddenly cut sharply into my sweating palm.

He hadn’t just cheated; he had orchestrated a complete legal forgery just to string his mistress along.

Or perhaps he had spent months weaving a massive conspiracy to steal my company from right under me.

A sudden urge to kick the door open and scream surged through my chest.

I wanted to shatter every piece of glass in that room.

I wanted to demand why I had endured ten years of his mother’s cruel insults about my inability to have a child.

But my hand slowly fell away from the brass knob.

Hysteria would give him the upper hand.

If he had the audacity to fake legal documents, he was hiding far darker secrets than just a cheap affair.

I took a slow, agonizing step backward.

My spine pressed against the cold wall at the end of the corridor.

I turned and slipped into the emergency stairwell.

The heavy metal fire door clicked shut, instantly silencing their disgusting laughter.

The air in the concrete stairwell smelled of old paint and dust.

Tears blurred my vision, but I aggressively blinked them away.

Crying would not rewind the last decade of my life.

The person who deserved to be utterly destroyed was not me.

I pulled out my phone and dialed the number of my private corporate attorney.

Brian had been with me since Foster Holdings was just a folder of unfiled paperwork.

He answered on the second ring.

My voice sounded entirely foreign to my own ears.

I told him I needed a massive favor tonight.

I instructed him to transfer my entire fifty-nine percent controlling stake into the protective trust we drafted years ago.

I demanded it be made completely legal, entirely confidential, and executed immediately.

Brian went dead silent for a long moment.

He warned me that activating this mechanism would completely strip Craig of any power to touch my shares.

I closed my eyes and pictured Heather’s hands on my husband’s belt.

I told him to get it done without asking any further questions.

I ordered him to review every single corporate share record, every bank account, and our prenuptial agreement.

I wanted absolute, ironclad control of my empire by sunrise.

Brian simply agreed and hung up.

I looked down at the crushed box of pastries in my hand.

Ten years of loyalty was apparently cheaper than a box of candy.

I walked down the dark concrete stairs.

Craig thought he could play me for a fool while he sat in a chair I bought for him.

He had no idea that the woman who handed him the world had just heard every single word.

He had no idea that the company he lusted after was currently vanishing from his grasp.

The next morning, I arrived at the office lobby right at nine.

The receptionist jumped out of her chair with a pale, panicked expression.

She stammered that I only had a board meeting scheduled for today.

I calmly placed my designer handbag on the marble counter.

I told her I was here to see the CEO.

I walked straight to the elevator without waiting for a response.

The steel doors reflected a cold, unrecognizable woman staring back at me.

I reached the twenty-sixth floor and marched directly toward his office.

I didn’t bother knocking this time.

I shoved the heavy wooden door wide open.