I watched Grant.
For twelve years, I had been the silent woman standing behind Grant Mercer, founder of Mercer Dynamics, the software company the press described as an overnight success. Those articles never mentioned the nights I slept beneath my desk while developing the original fraud-detection engine. They ignored the fact that our earliest investors arrived because of my patents, my research, and the introductions arranged by my father.
Grant made certain those details disappeared.
After our son died during childbirth, I withdrew from public conferences. Grief emptied me from the inside. Grant filled that absence with interviews, awards, and eventually Vanessa, his vice president of strategy. By the time I uncovered their affair, my name had been removed from the company website, my office had been emptied, and my security badge had been disabled. Grant even had guards escort me from the building while Vanessa stood inside my former office, drinking coffee from the mug printed with my son’s name.
Then Grant filed for divorce.
His petition alleged that I had contributed nothing to our marriage, suffered from “emotional instability,” and deserved only the limited settlement specified in our prenuptial agreement. He had already transferred millions into shell corporations and told our mutual friends that I was too damaged to resist him.
He had misjudged me.
When Judge Harold Whitmore entered, everyone rose. Grant gave me a pitying glance, the expression someone might offer an injured animal before shutting the gate.
The hearing opened with his attorney portraying Grant as a brilliant entrepreneur and me as a financially dependent wife. Vanessa pressed a tissue to imaginary tears while he described their affair as “a partnership born after the marriage had already failed.”
Lena barely spoke.
