For the previous three months, I had been secretly investigating unexplained withdrawals from my business account. I had found receipts for luxury hotels, designer gifts, wire transfers, and huge personal debts Lucas had never explained.
But until that exact moment, I hadn’t understood something even worse.
Beatrice knew about her son’s affair.
And she knew exactly where the stolen money came from.
As I stood pouring wine for thirty-eight smug women, a plan began forming in my mind—one that would finally destroy the pathetic lie I had lived with for years.
I returned to the kitchen without saying a word.
“Did you hear the terrible things she was saying out there?” Gavin asked me with deep indignation.
“I heard every single word, Gavin.”
“Then why on earth are we still serving them our finest food?”
I turned toward the kitchen window and looked into the private dining room.
“Because I want Beatrice to take legal and financial responsibility for every single word she speaks today.”
Three months earlier, I had noticed unusual transfers leaving the restaurant account without my authorization. When receipts from luxury hotels and jewelry stores began appearing, Lucas claimed he knew nothing about them.
Instead of confronting him immediately, I quietly collected screenshots, bank statements, and tax records.
Just three days before Beatrice’s surprise banquet, I found overdue loan notices hidden inside his coat pocket totaling nearly forty thousand dollars.
That was when I realized Lucas wasn’t only spending money on a mistress.
He was drowning in personal debt.
Worse, my corporate lawyer had recently uncovered documents Lucas had secretly drafted in an attempt to trick me into giving up my majority share of the business.
A simple signature couldn’t legally hand him the company, but his intention was obvious.
He wanted to use my successful restaurant as a financial lifeline to rescue himself.
That was when I knew my marriage was over.
I filed for divorce immediately.
That very morning, my attorney had handed me the certified copy of the final divorce decree.
Lucas didn’t know yet because he assumed I would forgive him, just as I always had.
