Chapter 5 - The Mistress’s True Colors
Across the city in a high-end downtown loft overlooking the swollen Mississippi River, Jessica Monroe was pacing across polished hardwood floors in a silk bathrobe, holding her smartphone to her ear with an expression of mounting fury.
“Michael, for the hundredth time, pick up your phone!” she shouted into the receiver as voicemail kicked in for the tenth time in twenty-four hours.
She hung up, tossing her phone onto the plush velvet sofa.
This wasn’t how the script was supposed to go.
When Michael walked out of his office on Friday afternoon after receiving those ridiculous divorce papers, Jessica had expected him to laugh it off, pour a glass of scotch, and spend the weekend planning their next luxury getaway. Instead, he had vanished into thin air. No texts. No calls. No updates.
Her friends at the firm had whispered rumors around the watercooler that morning: Did you hear? Michael Whitman’s wife had twins in an emergency c-section at St. Joseph’s. The babies are in critical care, and Michael is camped out at the hospital like a homeless vagrant.
Jessica’s blood ran cold when she heard the news.
Twins? Critical care?
That wasn't part of her life plan. She wasn't interested in playing stepmother to sickly infants or dealing with the astronomical medical debt and public scandal of a messy, contested divorce. She wanted a wealthy, carefree corporate executive who showered her in Cartier jewelry and took her to Aspen for ski weekends—not a broken, weeping husband whose entire world was collapsing around a hospital incubator.
Her phone buzzed violently on the coffee table.
She lunged for it, hoping it was Michael.
Instead, it was a text message from corporate HR: “Mr. Whitman has requested an indefinite personal leave of absence effective immediately. Furthermore, corporate compliance has placed all joint executive expense accounts under administrative review pending legal dissolution proceedings.”
Jessica stared at the screen in utter disbelief.
“Administrative review?” she hissed aloud to the empty apartment. “Are you kidding me?”
She dialed Michael’s direct line again.
“Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system…”
“Damn it, Michael!” she screamed, throwing her phone against the living room wall, where it shattered into a dozen plastic pieces.
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Realization hit her like a splash of freezing water. The golden goose was dead. Michael Whitman was financially exposed, professionally sidelined, and emotionally destroyed over a wife and children he had suddenly remembered he loved too late.
Within twenty minutes, Jessica had packed two large suitcases of designer clothes, grabbed her passport from the drawer, and called an Uber. She didn’t leave a note. She didn’t check on Michael. By sunset, she had booked a one-way flight to Miami, shedding her relationship with Michael Whitman the way a snake sheds dead skin—cold, calculated, and entirely without remorse.
