I should have walked away the first time I saw the scale of it. Instead I kept cleaning because I was still foolish enough to think I was preserving my marriage.
By the time of our fifth anniversary gala, I knew exactly how rotten the foundation was. I also knew Prescott had been sleeping with his executive assistant because men like Prescott always grew sloppier as they grew more arrogant. He hid perfume badly. He texted like an amateur. And the corporate expense patterns told their own story on their own.
I said nothing. I kept notes. I made copies. I built files.
My father had warned me months earlier that the company was approaching a cliff no internal maneuver could widen into a bridge. He told me I needed an exit plan. We built one together, carefully, without forcing a decision. “When you’re ready,” he had said, “we don’t have to chase them. We only have to step back and let gravity do what it always does.”