Chapter 14 - The Confession of a PawnJessica swallowed hard, her lower lip quivering. She didn't look angry; she looked utterly defeated.
"I didn't come here to fight you, Harper," Jessica said, her voice shaking. "I know I have no right to be here. I know I destroyed your family... and karma has paid me back a thousand times over."
"Spare me the philosophical remorse, Jessica," I replied sharply. "Get to the point. Why are you here?"
Jessica let out a bitter, humorless laugh, sinking uninvited into one of the sleek leather chairs opposite my desk. She stared down at her bruised knuckles.
"Ethan lied to you, yes. But he lied to me, too," she murmured. "When we were working together, he told me his marriage was already dead, that you were cold, unsupportive, and that you trapped him. He promised me that Reynolds-Parker Enterprises was his ticket to freedom. But I found out the truth last week."
I raised an eyebrow, motioning for her to continue.
"He didn't just embezzle corporate funds to buy our lifestyle," Jessica continued, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Ethan was funneling money into offshore accounts in the Caymans long before he left you. He was planning to dump you and take everything, even if you hadn't found out about us. I was just... I was just a convenient tool. A pawn in his game to look like a high-rolling corporate mogul."
"And now that he's broke, he tried to drag you down with him, didn't he?" I asked, my voice flat.
Jessica looked up, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp spike of venom. "He tried to pin the entire federal embezzlement charge on me! He gave my name to the investigators as the mastermind behind the fraudulent wire transfers! Can you believe that? After I gave up my career, my reputation, my youth for him... he tried to throw me to the wolves to save his own miserable skin!"
She leaned forward, pressing her hands against my desk, tears finally spilling over her lashes.
"He's a monster, Harper. A complete sociopath. And... and I heard he came to your house last night. He's desperate. He's unstable. If you don't protect yourself and little Chloe, he might do something reckless."
I stared at Jessica, watching the woman who had once tried to destroy my life now sitting before me, broken and terrified of the very man she had stolen from me.
There was a strange, poetic justice to it all. The architect of my destruction had ended up destroying himself, and his mistress was left picking through the wreckage of her own poor choices.
"Thank you for the warning, Jessica," I said smoothly, standing up from my desk to signal the end of the meeting. "Though I don't need your protection to handle Ethan. My foundations are a lot stronger than you think."
Jessica stood up slowly, wiping her face with the sleeve of her trench coat. She turned toward the door, pausing with her hand on the brass handle.
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"You won, Harper," she whispered without turning around. "You got the empire, the child, the respect. I hope it was worth the war."
"It wasn't a war, Jessica," I replied quietly. "It was just demolition."
