Everything She Built

5

Mrs. Sterling

Rachel's POV

I couldn't sleep that night.

I laid next to Owen, counting his breaths until I was sure he was asleep, then I got up.

His home office door was open, the way it always was when he’d meant to close it and forgotten. His laptop was on the desk and when I opened it, he was still logged into whatever he'd been doing before he came to bed.

I told myself I was just going to peek. I would close it and go back to sleep, pretending to be a wife who trusted her husband.

Instead, I sat down and checked his opened tabs.

It was a banking dashboard. There was an account I'd never seen before and an account balance that left me in disbelief. There was a list of monthly transfers, each one labeled with the letter R. It was my own initial, but I had nothing to do with this account.

I didn't understand it, but I took pictures with my phone. I checked open files, opened random folders. I didn't know what I was looking for. Something caught my eye. It was a Sterling Enterprises shareholder restructuring document from three years ago.

My name was near the top of the page but beneath it was a different holding company. I was so confused.

Upstairs, I heard footsteps.

Quickly, I closed the laptop, my heart slamming against my chest and threatening to escape. I left the room quickly, keeping the door the way I'd seen it. I forced myself to be calm as he kissed my forehead.

He only came to get something to drink. He didn't know I'd been in his office.

He invited me back to bed and I followed him, playing the role of the wife who didn't know anything.

There was a box in the garage I hadn’t opened in six years. Most of the earlier company documents were there. I had to find it in the morning.

After Owen had left for work, I found it exactly where I'd left it. The agreement was right where I remembered it. Our signatures were on it. I had fifty percent of a company built on my parents' mortgaged house and my savings.

I immediately picked up my phone.

Priya answered in the third ring. She'd handled our original paperwork years ago.

“Rachel! It's been forever. How are you doing? Everything okay?”

“Kind of random question, but if a company changes its shareholder structure, like, who legally owns what, does that need both original owners to sign off? Even years later, even if one of them isn't really involved in the business anymore?’

“Yes, if one owner has already signed something giving the other power of attorney over business decisions or if there's something buried in the original agreement letting one party restructure under specific conditions. People sign that kind of clause all the time without reading it. Why? What's going on, Rachel?”

“No reason. Just curious, it's for a friend. Thank you so much, Priya.”

I hung up before she could ask anything else. I was thinking about every folder Owen had given me to sign. I had signed every one of them without reading them. If there was a clause like that buried somewhere in eight years of paperwork, I wouldn’t even know where to start looking.

I needed to see with my own eyes exactly how much of it had been stolen from me.

***

I couldn't stop thinking about Lydia hiding something, and she didn't want to tell me. She told me to forget all about seeing Owen at Colton. And then she had the same hair.

Lingling has the same hair too and she and Owen have this weird dynamic. But he couldn't possibly be screwing his sister, could he?

I arrived at Sterling Enterprises. Today, I would find out who she really was. If I really did have lunch with him frequently, then someone at that front desk would know exactly when.

While I waited, I let myself really look at the lobby for the first time in years. There was a wall near the elevator bank I used to walk past every single day. A framed photograph used to hang there; the two of us, standing in front of a hand-painted sign that read Sterling Ventures.

The frame was still there. The picture was of Owen alone, shaking hands with a board member I didn't recognize. There was a gold plaque written by Owen Sterling, founder and CEO.

I don't know how long I sat there staring at that plaque before I made myself look away. The receptionist was having small talk with someone at the other end of her phone call.

“No, I told you, the CEO's wife always comes around twelve thirty on Thursdays.”

Today was Thursday. It was my lucky day.

I checked my phone , 12:24. I had six moments to wait.

To distract myself, I picked up a magazine from the side table. I watched the main entrance instead, trying to see if any brown-haired woman was the killer.

A delivery girl carried a bouquet of white lilies. I stared at them because they looked like the same lilies Owen always brought home whenever he wanted to apologize.

“Those look gorgeous. Who are they for?”

“Mrs. Sterling. Can you sign off that you got it?” the delivery girl asked.

I resisted the urge to stand up and say that I was Mrs. Sterling. Or did Owen know that I was here? No, he couldn't. If he did, he would have been in the lobby in seconds to meet me.

The elevator doors opened. My whole body turned before I could stop myself. I thought it was Owen, thankfully, it wasn't.

I made myself breathe.

That’s when I heard it. “Mrs. Sterling, you're here!”

I froze.

The receptionist was looking at me. No, scrap that, she was looking behind me. She was greeting someone standing a distance behind me. Finally, I was going to see the face of the other woman.

Slowly, I turned around.