Every caption dripped with happiness. Daddy's teaching penmanship today! Family trip with our little one!
Ordinary photos. The kind any family might take.
They burned my eyes like acid.
So while I'd been pulling all-nighters reviewing proposals, haggling with executives over every fraction of a percentage point—my husband had been showering his mistress with my money.
And the girl I'd sponsored. The one I'd given $300,000 a year to fund her education. She'd repaid me by servicing my husband.
Even giving him the heirs she thought he deserved. One after another.
I forwarded everything to my private attorney with a single instruction:
"I want a divorce. Duke Stephens walks away with nothing and gets thrown out of the company."
It was late when we both arrived home.
Nearly sixty years old, both of us worn down by the day's chaos. Duke tossed his jacket aside and collapsed onto the sofa, rubbing his temples. Even exhausted, he maintained that cultured composure of his.
"Gertrude. You embarrassed yourself today. Storming off in front of all those guests."
I held back the bitterness, the rage churning in my stomach.
"What was I supposed to do? Stay and let everyone watch me be humiliated?"