Chapter 6 - THE COMPANY WAS NOT AS HEALTHY AS EMMA BELIEVED
The numbers were worse than the affair.
That surprised Emma.
She thought nothing could feel more personal than discovering her husband had planned a wedding with another woman before forcing her and their newborn into the snow.
Then Jonah showed her the operating forecast.
Sterling Pines was losing money.
Not because the venue lacked bookings.
Because Lucas had expanded too aggressively.
A second catering kitchen.
Luxury shuttle leases.
A winterized glass pavilion.
Three expensive preferred-vendor contracts.
Emma knew about every project individually.
She did not know Lucas financed them with short-term obligations stacked on top of one another.
“You signed some of these,” Jonah said.
Emma looked at the pages.
He was right.
She had.
That mattered.
She could not place every bad decision on Lucas.
Two years earlier, she had wanted Sterling Pines to become the most prestigious private venue in Fairfield County.
She approved growth.
She pushed for the glass pavilion.
She assumed Lucas’s projections were conservative.
She stopped reading every cash report because the marriage and the business had begun consuming the same hours.
“I helped build this mess,” Emma said.
Jonah answered carefully.
“You participated in expansion. That isn’t the same as authorizing undisclosed transfers.”
Emma knew.
But acknowledging her own mistake changed how she approached the rest.
She stopped asking, How do I take everything back?
She started asking, What actually survives?
The answer depended on the missing $186,400 and the Vanessa payments.
Then Lucas made his first offer.
He would return part of the disputed money.
He would resign from day-to-day operations.
He would agree to expedited divorce mediation.
In exchange, Emma would sell him her seventy-percent interest in Sterling Pines Events and grant a long-term lease over the property.
“What price?” Emma asked.
Caroline slid the offer across the table.
Emma laughed.
It valued the business as if it were profitable.
Lucas wanted Emma to accept paper value for a company whose cash he had obscured, while leaving him the property operations he had promised Vanessa.
“No.”
Caroline nodded.
“I assumed.”
Emma added one condition of her own.
Full forensic accounting first.
Lucas withdrew the offer.
That reaction mattered.
Meanwhile, Vanessa changed sides for the first time.
Not publicly.
She sent Emma one document through her attorney.
An email Lucas had written eight months earlier:
Once E is fully out, the land follows the company. Don’t worry about title mechanics. She won’t fight after the baby.
Emma read the last sentence repeatedly.
After the baby.
Lucas had not simply exploited Emma’s pregnancy when the opportunity appeared.
He expected motherhood to weaken her willingness to fight.
Vanessa had known at least part of that.
But why send the email now?
Rachel answered first.
“Because she’s scared he lied to her too.”
May you like
Emma suspected Rachel was right.
The question was how much Vanessa had known before fear finally outweighed loyalty.
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