Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN RED SHOES
Paige requested a meeting three weeks later.
Her attorney attended.
So did Alicia and a federal investigator.
She entered wearing gray flats.
It was the first time I had seen her without red shoes.
Her face looked smaller without the expression of superiority she carried at Northgate events.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
“You owe investigators accuracy.”
She swallowed.
Then began.
Paige met Ethan eighteen months earlier.
He told her our marriage existed only on paper.
He described me as a perpetual student living from his salary.
He said I refused intimacy, avoided family, and planned to leave after graduation.
Paige believed some of it because Ethan showed her carefully selected account statements.
The household account contained mostly transfers from him.
He did not show the separate account from which I paid the mortgage, insurance, tuition, and other expenses directly.
He showed her my university biography.
Not my private consulting agreements.
Not my patents.
Not Aster Vale.
“He said you were embarrassed by your lack of success,” Paige told me.
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
The honest answer mattered.
She wanted Ethan.
Believing I was useless made taking him feel less cruel.
Paige first shared Northgate information to impress him.
A deal closing.
A market prediction.
A client rumor.
Then Ethan began asking precise questions.
He said the information helped him understand sectors for internal strategy.
Eventually, he requested announcement windows and projected share movements.
When Paige hesitated, he said he intended only to guide his mother’s retirement portfolio.
Margaret opened the brokerage positions.
Ethan supplied the money.
Paige supplied the information.
They told themselves no one would connect the accounts.
Then she opened the Project Lumen founder file.
“My first thought was that it had to be another Claire Mercer.”
“There was a photograph.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I called Ethan.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to screenshot everything.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her eyes lowered.
“Because I thought if he could claim part of the company, he would not need me to protect his career.”
The affair had already begun weakening.
Ethan criticized Paige whenever Northgate denied him promotions.
He expected her to provide information she risked her career accessing.
He promised marriage after our divorce.
Yet at 6:27, six minutes after learning I was Aster Vale’s founder, he sent Margaret another message.
Do not let Paige panic. Claire’s assets change everything. We may be able to repair the marriage before the deal becomes public.
Paige found the message during the investigation.
“You were never his future,” I said.
“I know.”
“Neither was I.”
She looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you regret what happened.”
“That isn’t forgiveness.”
“No.”
Paige entered a cooperation agreement.
She admitted unauthorized access and participation in trading based on confidential information.
Her testimony established Ethan and Margaret’s roles.
She lost her Northgate position and professional licenses associated with regulated investment work.
The criminal and civil outcomes would take longer.
Her cooperation reduced consequences but did not erase them.
Ethan continued claiming the trades belonged to Margaret.
Then investigators recovered a voice recording from his car.
Margaret:
Once Meridian announces, we sell immediately.
Ethan:
Paige says the stock may move twelve percent.
Margaret:
And if compliance asks where we got the information?
Ethan:
You follow pharmaceutical markets.
Margaret:
I don’t know the first thing about pharmaceuticals.
Ethan:
Then start reading.
The call occurred nine days before the acquisition announcement.
Margaret had purchased the options the following morning.
At Northgate, Ethan had often lectured junior employees about ethics.
May you like
At home, he told me my research had no value.
Between those two performances, he believed rules existed mainly for people without family accounts to hide behind.
