Chapter 1: The Woman Behind the Secret Account
I didn’t sleep that night.
My husband, Richard, lay beside me with one arm stretched across my pillow, breathing peacefully. Every so often, his phone lit up on the bedside table.
At 12:17 a.m., it vibrated.
At 12:19, it vibrated again.
At 12:23, he reached for it without opening his eyes, typed a short reply, and dropped it back onto the table.
I watched him in the darkness.
Seven years ago, I would have smiled at that little gesture. I would have thought he was checking on a client or dealing with a business problem. Richard had always been ambitious, and I had always admired that about him.
I had built a software company with two friends when I was twenty-eight. After we sold it, I invested part of the proceeds in property and kept the rest in a portfolio managed by professionals. Richard entered my life two years later, charming, funny, and apparently uninterested in my money.
