His offices occupied several floors of a sleek glass tower in downtown Chicago. Three years earlier, he had lost his wife, Isabella Bennett, to a sudden diabetic coma.
One day she was there; the next, she wasn’t. She left behind their daughter, Charlotte Bennett, who was now four.
Eleven months ago, drowning in board meetings and investor calls, Alex convinced himself that Charlotte needed a maternal figure.
That was when he married Vanessa Clark, a 35-year-old former preschool teacher he had met at a charity gala.
Vanessa had seemed warm, attentive, almost saintly with Charlotte. For months, Alex believed he had made the right decision.
But over the past two weeks, something had changed.
Charlotte, who used to skip toward preschool with her backpack bouncing, suddenly resisted every morning.
“I don’t want to go, Daddy,” she would cry, clutching his leg.
“Why not, sweetheart? You love school. You love your friends.”
“I don’t like it anymore. Please let me stay home.”
Alex would kneel, brushing her curls from her face. “Daddy has to work. And you get to learn fun things.”
Vanessa would step in gently. “I’ll handle it, Alex. You’ll be late.”