Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN BESIDE HIM
Paige called me that night.
Her voice lacked the smooth confidence she used in interviews.
“I want to meet without Barrett.”
Marisol advised me not to go alone. We met the next morning in her office, where Paige sat at the conference table with a leather portfolio pressed against her chest.
She did not apologize for the affair.
“I’m not going to insult you by pretending Barrett and I only became involved after you separated,” she said. “We didn’t.”
The honesty hurt more cleanly than an excuse.
Paige believed Barrett was the sole founder. He had told her the prenup protected the company and that I was using the twins to increase a settlement. In return, she designed a public campaign presenting him as a single father protecting a major employer from a resentful spouse.
She had planted the courthouse article.
She had also prepared an announcement naming herself chief brand officer and minority owner after the divorce.
“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked.
“Because he promised me ten percent.”
“That isn’t remorse.”
“No,” she said. “It’s how I realized he lied to me too.”
She opened the portfolio.
Inside were draft press releases, messages from Barrett, and a proposed divorce statement he expected me to sign. The statement said I had never participated in founding or operating O’Connell Logistics and voluntarily relinquished any disputed interest.
A second document addressed custody.
If I signed the business statement, Barrett would withdraw his request for full custody and agree to equal parenting time.
The two agreements had been drafted within minutes of each other.
Paige stared at the table. “He told me this was negotiation.”
“It was extortion dressed as cooperation,” Marisol said.
Paige winced but did not argue.
Then she showed us a message Barrett had sent after the first hearing:
Once she realizes the boys heard what people think of her, she’ll fold.
That line became the major piece of evidence—not because it proved ownership, but because it explained his behavior.
The press article. The comments to our sons. The humiliating courtroom performance. The demand for full custody.
He had not merely hidden my contribution. He had deliberately damaged my relationship with Wyatt and Emmett to make the company too emotionally expensive to defend.
Paige agreed to provide the materials through formal discovery and testify about their source.
Before leaving, she paused at the door.
“Did you know he was this afraid of being ordinary?”
“Yes,” I said. “I just didn’t know how many people he would sacrifice to avoid it.”
That afternoon, the bank notified the company that its credit line was under review.
Barrett had one choice left: correct the ownership record and risk losing control, or continue denying it and place the entire company in danger.
May you like
He chose to call me.
“Come to the house tonight,” he said. “We finish this without lawyers.”
