My CEO’s Wife Canceled My Flight Then Lost Everything Chapter 08

My CEO’s Wife Canceled My Flight Then Lost Everything Chapter 08

The next time I saw Vanessa, she barely looked like the same woman.

Her hair was tangled.

She wore no makeup.

Her expensive dress was wrinkled and crushed.

Security had stopped her in the lobby, but she clung to the doorframe.

“Let me talk to Richard!”

“Let me see Grant!”

“I’m Grant Whitmore’s wife. You can’t keep me out!”

The young receptionist behind the desk looked terrified.

Richard stepped out of the elevator.

He barely glanced at Vanessa.

“Ms. Whitmore, the company has already filed reports with law enforcement. The board is not withdrawing

anything we’ve submitted.”

Vanessa dropped to her knees.

“Richard, I was wrong. I know I was wrong.”

“I can’t repay the Bluewater loss, but Grant can.”

“Let him come back. Let him stay CEO. He can earn the money back.”

She sobbed.

No one moved to help her.

Richard’s voice stayed cold.

“A man under investigation for bribery and embezzlement is not fit to manage this company.”

Vanessa looked up sharply.

“What about me?”

“Please. Let me go. I’m just a woman. I only loved my husband too much.”

I stood nearby and almost laughed.

That wasn’t what she’d said while ripping up the proposal.

It wasn’t what she’d said while spreading rumors about me in the company chat.

Back then, she was Grant Whitmore’s wife.

She had acted like the company was half hers.

Now that consequences had arrived, she was suddenly “just a woman.”

The elevator doors opened again.

Grant stepped out beside his attorney.

He looked ten years older than he had a month earlier.

His hairline was thinning.

His face was gray.

Even his suit had lost the sharp, expensive look it once seemed to carry.

Without the corner office and the CEO title, he was simply an overweight, exhausted, calculating middle-aged

man.

Vanessa’s eyes lit up.

“Grant!”

“You came to get me, didn’t you?”

He walked toward her and dropped a document onto the floor.

“Sign it.”

She looked down.

Divorce papers.

Vanessa froze.

“You want a divorce?”

Grant’s voice held no warmth at all.

“Erin, I’m not letting you drag me down anymore.”

Erin.

The name struck her harder than a slap.

Her entire body shook..

“What did you call me?”

“Your real name.”

Grant frowned.

“Stop embarrassing yourself with a fake identity.”

Vanessa suddenly laughed.

Tears streamed down her face.

“Grant, you were the one who told me I understood you better than Rachel.”

“You were the one who said that as long as I listened to you, no one would ever look down on me again.”

“And now you’re embarrassed by me?”

“Don’t act disgusted with me now. You made me into this.”

Grant’s expression darkened.

“Shut up.”

She lunged at him and clawed at his face.

“No!”

“Sabrina’s pregnant with your baby, so now you think you can throw me away?”

“You’re dreaming!”

Security rushed forward and pulled her back.

In the chaos, she saw me.

Hatred flooded her eyes.

“Claire Morgan!”

“This is all your fault!”

She broke free from one of the guards, grabbed a glass from the reception desk, and charged at me.

Ethan shoved me aside.

The glass flew past my shoulder and shattered against the floor.

Law enforcement arrived at that exact moment.

This time, being Mrs. Whitmore couldn’t save her.

As officers restrained her wrists, she kept screaming.

“I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I was only trying to save my marriage!”

Everyone in the lobby watched her.

Not one person believed her anymore.

Before the officers took her away, she stared at Grant.

“You’re not getting away either.”

Grant looked aside.

He didn’t meet her eyes.

And I knew she was right.

When sentencing finally came, they appeared in court together as defendants.

It was pouring rain outside.

I sat in the last row of the gallery.

Grant Whitmore was convicted on multiple counts of bribery, embezzlement, and fraud tied to sham

transactions.

He received eight and a half years in prison.

The court ordered forfeiture of his illicit gains.

Erin Reed was convicted of routing illegal funds, facilitating bribes, and falsifying credentials to obtain a

corporate role that gave her access to company resources.

She received six years.

Sabrina Cole faced a separate prosecution for concealing illicit funds and making false statements to

investigators.

Horizon Digital Solutions entered restructuring under board supervision.

Grant’s real estate, vehicles, and equity holdings were seized and auctioned.

The jewelry and designer bags Erin had flaunted online for years were tagged and taken one piece at a time.

The socialite persona she’d spent eight years building collapsed more completely than the proposal she’d shredded that morning.

The internet tore her apart.

User 1: [The woman who accused every assistant of sleeping with the boss literally slept her way to the top

herself.

User 2: [She watched every woman in his office and still missed the pregnant mistress.]

User 3: [Imagine trying so hard to save your marriage that you and your husband both end up in prison.]

Even the relationship influencers Vanessa had followed so religiously deleted their old interactions with her

overnight.

The irony almost made me laugh.

She had once used their language to humiliate me.

In the end, the same rhetoric turned on her.

Horizon later issued a formal statement clearing my name.

The board apologized to me publicly.

Some of the employees who had attacked me in the company chat were fired.

Others were disciplined.

Several sent me long, emotional messages asking for forgiveness.

I accepted none of them.

Apologies that late couldn’t save the version of me who had died alone in the rain.

Ethan passed probation and became a permanent employee.

Diane’s daughter didn’t need anyone’s recommendation. She landed the job she wanted on her own.

As for me, I left Horizon.

At my new company, I wasn’t anyone’s executive assistant.

I was hired as Project Compliance Lead.

On my first day, Rachel sent me a message.

Rachel: [You did it.]

I looked out at the sunlight beyond my office window.

My finger rested on the screen for a long time.

The first time around, I fought with everything I had to save a billion-dollar deal.

I never saved myself.

This time, I stopped cleaning up disasters other people created.

The deal they sabotaged with their own hands finally collapsed on them, not me.

This time, I was the one who made it out of that rainy night alive.