Chapter 5: WHAT HAVE I DONE

(Richard's POV)

I stood in the middle of the ballroom like a man who had been shot and had not yet realized he was bleeding.

Evelyn Williams. My wife. My quiet, invisible, obedient wife was the heir to the largest corporation in Britain.

People moved around me, laughing, talking, clinking glasses. The music played on. The world continued spinning as if nothing had changed. But everything had changed. Everything.

I excused myself from the gala early. Tonia followed me to the car, her heels clicking fast on the pavement.

"Richard, you cannot let this rattle you. So she has money. So what? It does not change what she is."

"What she is?" I turned on her so suddenly that she stumbled back a step. "What she is? She is the heir to a fifty-billion-pound company, Tonia. She was my wife for three years and I did not know."

"Because she lied to you! She tricked you!" Tonia's voice was high, frantic. "She is manipulative, Richard. Why else would she hide something like that unless she was playing games?"

I did not answer. I got in the car and drove home alone.

The apartment was dark when I entered. Evelyn's apartment. The one I gave her when we married because I did not want her living in my penthouse. The one I visited maybe ten times in three years.

Her scent was gone. The air was clean and empty and cold. The closets were bare. The bathroom shelves were cleared. Three years of her existence in this space, and she had erased herself in a single day.

I walked through each room like a stranger touring a museum. The kitchen where she used to cook meals I never came home to eat. The living room where she sat alone every night. The bedroom where she slept without me beside her.

Something pressed against my chest, heavy and sharp, and I could not name it.

In the bedroom, I opened the dresser. Empty. All drawers cleared out. Except one. The bottom drawer held a single item.

A leather sketchbook.

I pulled it out and sat on the edge of the bed. The cover was worn, soft from use. I opened it.

The first page was a building design. Clean lines, bold structure, elegant and innovative. I recognized it instantly. It was the Harrington Tower project, the one that saved Valentine Industries two years ago when we nearly went bankrupt.

I turned the page. Another design. The Crosswell Bridge renovation. Our second-biggest contract.

Page after page after page. Every major project that built my company over the past three years was here, sketched in Evelyn's hand. Her handwriting filled the margins with notes, calculations, material specifications.

My hands began to shake.

Project Aurora was on page forty-seven. The same design Tonia presented. The same design that won her my praise, my admiration, my trust. Here it was in Evelyn's sketchbook, dated eight months before Tonia ever showed it to me.

The room tilted.

I flipped to the very last page. There, in Evelyn's neat handwriting, was a single line:

"For Richard. Even if you never see me, I wanted to see you succeed."

The sketchbook fell from my hands and hit the floor.

I sat there in the silence of the apartment my wife had lived in alone for three years, and a sound came out of my throat that I did not recognize. Not a word. Not a cry. Something between a groan and a gasp, the sound of a man understanding too late.

Every success I credited to Tonia was Evelyn's. Every idea, every innovation, every breakthrough. My wife was the invisible genius behind my company, and I gave her glory to another woman.

I grabbed my phone and dialed Evelyn's number. It rang and rang and went to voicemail. I called again. Voicemail. Again. Voicemail.

"Answer the phone," I whispered to the empty room. "Please."

She did not answer.

I called Clinton next. He picked up on the second ring.

"Clinton, I need to see Evelyn. I need to get into Williams Global."

A long pause. "Richard. It is midnight."

"I do not care what time it is."

"And I do not think she wants to see you."

"Clinton…. Please."

He sighed. "I will see what I can do. But mate... the things I have been hearing about Tonia tonight. People at that gala were talking. Something does not add up about her. You might want to look into that before you chase your ex-wife."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean someone at that gala mentioned that Tonia's maiden name is not what she told you it is. I do not have details yet. But be careful."

He hung up.

I sat in the dark holding the sketchbook against my chest like it could bring her back. The weight of three wasted years pressed down on me, crushing and absolute.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, Clinton's words echoed like a warning bell:

"Something does not add up about Tonia.”