All Chapters of When My Rich Boyfriend Went Broke, I Stopped Pretending: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

For three years, I was Julian Mercer’s trophy girlfriend.That’s what everyone in New York high society said.No job, no social life. My favorite hobbies were sleeping in and then taking his black card to Fifth Avenue to buy things I didn’t need. Even his own sister, Sophia, said I probably wouldn’t last a week without the Mercer family.I never argued.After all, three years ago, I was the controlling shareholder and chief investment officer of North Shore Capital. I worked 18 hours a day and was still watching overseas markets at two in the morning. Eventually I passed out cold in a conference room. When I woke up, I had an IV in the back of my hand, and the doctor asked if I planned to keep going until I died at my desk.So I stopped.I handed day-to-day management over to Margaret Hale, kept my controlling stake, and only showed up when something required my signature.Then I met Julian.He knew I used to work in finance, but he never asked how much money I’d made or why I’d quit.

On the top floor of the club, only one conference room had its lights on.When I pushed the door open, Julian was sitting at one end of a long table.Nathan sat across from him.Around them were representatives from six hedge funds and two creditors.When Julian saw me, his face darkened.“What are you doing here?”“I missed you.”“Elena Bell.”He almost never used my full name.I walked over and sat down next to him.“The plane left.”He stared at me for a few seconds. Then, without a word, he took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.“Stay close to me.”Nathan laughed.“At a time like this, you’re still fussing over a woman?”A lawyer slid an agreement in front of Julian.“The Mercer family relinquishes control and acknowledges material omissions in the group’s financial statements. In exchange, the creditors will hold off on calling in the loans, and the witnesses in the case against the two Mercer brothers will revise their statements.”Julian flipped to the last page.H

The next morning, North Shore Capital’s conference room was packed.The heads of all six funds had come to New York in person.They weren’t there to grovel.And nobody was interested in putting on that kind of show.What actually scared them was losing money and being held liable.If North Shore Capital cut off future funding, they wouldn’t just lose deals. They’d also have to explain to their own investors why they’d spent huge sums targeting a public company without first completing independent due diligence.I sat at one end of the long table.“I only want three things.”Everyone looked at me.“Stop shorting Mercer Group stock.“Withdraw the joint takeover bid based on this report.“And hand over all the original material you got from Nathan.”One of them frowned.“What about compensation?”“The lawyers can work that out.”“You’re not going to seek treble damages?”I glanced at him.“This isn’t an auction.”Julian sat next to me, holding a cup of coffee he never touched.Once the me

By the next day, the controversy had exploded.Some people said I was using North Shore Capital to bail out my boyfriend.Others said the Mercer Group’s whole crisis had been a setup from start to finish.Someone even made a spreadsheet listing every bag and piece of jewelry I’d bought over the past three years, along with my travel expenses, to prove that Julian and I had some kind of ongoing financial arrangement.Sophia read for ten minutes, then slammed her tablet facedown on the table.“Now relationships need an audit?”“Looks like it.”I took her coffee.“That’s mine.“Don’t you have your own?”“Yours is sweeter.”She glared at me but didn’t take it back.The Mercer Group’s board asked Julian and me to temporarily recuse ourselves from any decisions on transactions involving the other’s company.North Shore Capital also launched an independent compliance review.All of that was reasonable.The real problem was that one director suggested we publicly announce we were “taking a bre

Nathan was going after several firms that had increased their stakes while Mercer Group stock was crashing.One of them really had worked with North Shore Capital in the past.He wanted to make it look as though I’d secretly bought votes to sway the outcome.I couldn’t step in directly.I’d already formally recused myself from any North Shore Capital vote involving the Mercer Group.So this time, all I could do was sit outside and wait.It felt awful.Sophia watched me shift in my seat three times before she finally spoke up.“Do you want to go in?”“I can’t.”“Aren’t you supposed to be the best?”“Being the best doesn’t mean I get to do whatever I want.”She looked at me for two seconds.“That sounds so weird coming from you.”I ignored her.The review inside went on for two hours.In the end, independent counsel confirmed that none of the money those firms had used to buy Mercer Group shares came from North Shore Capital.One of them had even held Mercer Group shares since before I m