Chapter 7 - The Company Had a Problem Marcus Didn’t Know About
Marcus requested an internal review.
This time, he didn’t tell Andrew first.
Within forty-eight hours, the company’s outside counsel identified an uncomfortable pattern.
Andrew had been communicating with Isabella outside official channels for months.
Not romantic.
Financial.
He was negotiating a separate consulting arrangement that would pay him if the distribution agreement closed under specific terms.
A conflict he had never disclosed.
Marcus stared at the documents.
“He was getting paid on both sides?”
“Potentially,” counsel said.
The arrangement wasn’t complete.
But it was serious enough.
Then the internal review found something stranger.
Some of the emails Isabella had threatened Marcus with had never been sent to her.
They came from Marcus’s restricted executive mailbox.
Someone with internal access had provided them.
Andrew had that access.
Suddenly Isabella’s leverage looked manufactured.
She hadn’t simply collected damaging information during an affair.
Someone inside the company had been feeding it to her.
Why?
Pressure.
Control.
Negotiating advantage.
And perhaps something else.
Marcus looked at me.
“I thought I was protecting the company from Isabella.”
“No,” I said. “You were being steered.”
He nodded.
That didn’t absolve him.
He had still cheated.
Still lied.
Still opened the door for all of this.
But now the affair itself looked less like the center of the crisis and more like the vulnerability other people learned to exploit.
Then outside counsel found the first direct connection to me.
Andrew’s assistant had accessed Marcus’s confidential travel file.
Attached to it were accommodation notes explaining why I required limited walking and private rest space at the gala.
May you like
My pregnancy information.
Someone had opened that file two days before Isabella attacked me.
