My Husband Chose His Ex I Became His Regret novel Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Aidan

:.

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The first alert comes through at 6:47 AM… I’ve already opened my eyes, although not a lot of time has passed since I went to bed. Lila is snuggled in close to me and finally sleeping after an entire night of trying to develop a game plan to prove the incriminating evidence Mark has created against us is fake. Her phone has been beside me on the nightstand since 2 AM when I made her hand it over because she couldn’t stop jumping on her email to see if he was going to hit us with any more bad news.

Leaked emails suggest Storm Industries CEO orchestrated corporate sabotage against Knight Group with help from CEO’s wife. Full story developing.

My stomach drops.

I see I’ve had fifteen missed calls, twenty-three text messages and forty-seven emails and it’s not even seven

yet.

I slide quietly from bed as Lila stirs, makes a noise, but goes back to sleep. The bags under her eyes are even darker than they were last night when she cried herself to sleep around 4am after I had assured her three times that we’d take care of everything, that we’d fix everything, that Mark would never win.

I’m not sure if I was lying; I think Lila maybe knows I was, but she needed to hear me say it.

I close the bedroom door behind me and go into my office and pull my laptop up so I can pull the article up.

The headline literally makes my head spin: Affair, Conspiracy and Corporate Espionage: The Dirty Truth about Knight Group’s Closure.

He published everything. The doctored photos showing timestamps from before the divorce. “Leaked” emails between me and Lila discussing strategy, except we never sent those emails. Text messages about destroying Mark, except we never sent those texts.

It’s all fabricated. Expertly done. Just plausible enough that people will believe it.

“Marcus,” he said immediately upon answering my call, “have you seen this?”

I’m seeing it.”

“It’s everywhere. Wall Street Journal picked it up. Bloomberg. Financial Times. CNN is running it in their morning segment. Aidan, this is-”

“I know what it is.”

“The board is calling an emergency meeting. Nine AM. They want answers.”

“I’ll be there.”

“They’re going to ask about Lila. About the allegations. About whether any of this is true.”

10:23 Wed, May 13

Chapter 71

“None of it is true and they know it.”

“They know the timeline doesn’t work. They know you didn’t hire Lila until after her divorce. But these photos…”

“Are doctored.”

“Can you prove that?”

3.3

I pull up the metadata analysis my security team sent at 5 AM, apparently they sleep even less than I do. “Yes. The photos were edited. The timestamps were altered. The EXIF data shows manipulation. We can prove it.”

“Okay. Good. That’s good. What about the emails? The texts?”

“Also fabricated. We never sent those messages. IT is pulling our actual correspondence now, everything’s backed up on company servers. We’ll show the real timeline. The real communications. None of this will hold up to scrutiny.”

“But the damage is already done.” Marcus’s voice is grim. “Stock is down twelve percent in pre-market trading. Partners are calling. Clients are nervous. The SEC sent an inquiry, they want to know if there’s any truth to the corporate sabotage allegations.”

I close my eyes. Pinch the bridge of my nose. “Of course they did.”

“Aidan, I need to ask. Is there anything, anything at all, that could be problematic? Any communication between you and Lila that could be misconstrued? Any…”

“None.” I replied.

Silence on the line. Then: “What about Lila? How is she?”

I glance back toward the bedroom. “Asleep.”

We talk more on how to go about the issue and then I hang up. Open my laptop. Start composing an email to my legal team. Then another to PR. Then another to….

My phone rings again. Unknown number.

I answer. “Storm.”

“Mr. Storm.” A woman’s voice. Professional. Clipped. “This is Diane Chen from the Wall Street Journal Tim calling for comment on the allegations that you and Lila Stark conspired to…”

“No comment.”

“Mr. Storm, we have sources who say…”

“Your sources are wrong. The allegations are false. The evidence is fabricated. And this call is over”

I hang up.

10:23 Wed, May 13 N

Chapter 71

The phone rings immediately. Different number.

“Mr. Storm, this is James Parker from …”

I turn the phone off.

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I stared out the window at the city waking up beyond the windows. The people would be reading the article while forming a judgment on me, Lila and our relationship.

I’ve dealt with hostile takeovers, smear campaigns, corporate espionage, and corporate competitors who wanted to take me out.

None of them made me feel like I do right now with this helpless rage and the need to burn everything to protect someone I care about.

The bedroom door opened, and Lila came out of the bedroom wearing one of my shirts, hair a mess, and her eyes were puffy.

“It’s out,” she said. It was not a question.”Yes,” I replied.

“Oh my God, How bad?” she asked.

I wanted to lie and tell her that it was manageable.

That it was containable. That we could work together to fix it and that everything will be okay but I didn’t.”.

“The situation is very bad; all of the big news organizations have reported it; our stock has dropped significantly since yesterday; the board is meeting this morning at 9; SEC opened an inquiry.”

She slowly nodded her head in response to the answer. She did not cry, nor did she fall apart, she just processed the news and dealt with it as she anticipated she would have to.

“I think I should resign,” Lila said.

“No.”

“Aidan…”

“No; you did nothing wrong. You will not resign; and you are not going to sacrifice yourself in order to make this easier for anyone else.”

“But if I resign, the media’s attention will be taken off Storm Industries and put on me. This way I can help protect you and your business and other stakeholders within Storm Industries.”

“I don’t want you to have protection if it means that you are going to sacrifice your best interest by throwing you to the wolves.” I walked over to her, took her hands, and could not believe how cold they were. “We will fight this together; we will prove that the evidence is not true, we will show the truth about this, we will…”

“What happens if the truth does not matter?” Lila’s voice broke. “Aidan, look around you. The public does not care about the facts; they are just interested in what makes a great story; and right now, the majority of the population is interested in the fact that the CEO’s former wife caused his business to fail out of revenge. That

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