Chapter 5 - THE PRICE CHLOE WAS PROMISED
Chloe contacted Dana through her own attorney.
She wanted immunity from any civil claim I might bring against her in exchange for information.
I refused to promise anything before hearing what she had done.
We met by video because I was still on limited activity.
Without the cream dress and carefully styled hair, Chloe looked younger than she had at the shower.
She admitted the affair began eight months earlier during a company conference in Cincinnati.
Her pregnancy was real.
She believed the baby was Julian’s.
When she told him, he rented her an apartment and promised that his parents would protect her financially. Arthur and Beatrice offered seventy-five thousand dollars toward a condominium if she appeared at the shower and announced that Julian was leaving me.
“Why at my baby shower?” I asked.
Chloe looked away.
“Beatrice said you would never sign if they approached you privately.”
“What did she tell you the papers were?”
“A separation agreement.”
“They were company and collateral documents.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You knew they planned to humiliate a pregnant woman.”
Her face tightened.
“I knew they wanted you angry enough to leave.”
“You called me barren.”
“Julian gave me the line.”
The answer was so cowardly that I almost laughed.
Chloe said Julian had told her I already knew about the relationship and refused to accept the marriage was over. He described me as controlling, emotionally unstable, and obsessed with keeping the Winslow name.
“Did you believe him?” I asked.
“I believed the parts that made my life easier.”
That was the first honest thing she said.
She also revealed that Beatrice had rehearsed the sequence that morning.
Chloe would enter at 1:45.
Julian would announce the pregnancy.
Arthur would present the agreement.
The selected guests would remain nearby while I signed.
The bank examiners were expected at two.
“What if I refused?” I asked.
Chloe swallowed.
“Julian said he’d make you understand what you stood to lose.”
She insisted no one had planned the punch.
I believed they had not written it down.
That was not the same as believing the violence surprised them.
Before ending the call, Chloe added one detail.
“After he hit you, Arthur didn’t look at you. He looked at the clock.”
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Then she said she would not sign a statement unless the Winslows continued paying her rent.
Even after watching Julian strike me, she still believed safety could be purchased from the people who created the danger.
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