Chapter 4 - The Legal Onslaught
At 7:00 AM the next morning, I woke up in a king-sized bed wrapped in Egyptian cotton sheets. For the first time in months, my back didn't ache as severely, and the knot of anxiety that had lived in my stomach throughout my pregnancy had loosened.
I walked out into the private dining room, where Eleanor was already seated at a long marble table. Sitting beside her were three individuals in tailored dark suits: Arthur Vance, the chief legal counsel for Crawford Global; Sarah Lin, a top-tier family law attorney; and a private investigator named Marcus Cole.
"Good morning, my sweet girl," Eleanor said, standing up to kiss my forehead. "How did you sleep?"
"Better than I have in years," I admitted, taking a seat.
Arthur Vance slid a thick leather-bound folder toward me. "Waverly, my name is Arthur Vance. Mrs. Crawford has retained our firm to represent you in your divorce proceedings and to oversee the corporate restructuring regarding Sterling Financial."
"Divorce?" I asked softly, the word feeling heavy yet liberating.
"If that is what you wish," Sarah Lin said gently. "Given Mr. Sterling’s behavior last night, along with evidence of financial coercion, we have already drafted an emergency petition for absolute divorce, full legal and physical custody of your unborn child, and an emergency protective order."
Marcus Cole, the investigator, opened a laptop and turned it toward me. "Waverly, while you were resting, my team did a preliminary audit of Sterling Financial. We discovered something very interesting."
I leaned forward. "What is it?"
"Two years ago," Marcus explained, "Richard Sterling took out a ten-million-dollar commercial loan to expand his firm's hedge fund division. He used his marriage to you as leverage, telling investors he had access to Crawford Hospitality supply lines—even though neither you nor he knew you were the heir to the estate at the time."
"He used my name?" I asked, confused.
"He used the fact that you were working as a junior interior designer for a Crawford contractor," Arthur clarified. "He forged your signature on third-party liability waivers to secure his corporate line of credit. When you refused to sign those financial documents two days ago at your house, you weren't just refusing a minor request—you were refusing to cover up his forgery."
The realization hit me like a splash of ice water.
Two days ago, Richard had tried to force me to sign a stack of legal papers while I was having painful Braxton Hicks contractions. When I refused, telling him I wanted my own lawyer to review them, he had flown into a rage, taking my credit cards and planning the public abandonment at the hotel.
He wasn't just tired of my pregnancy. He was terrified that his financial fraud was about to be exposed.
"So his entire firm," I said, "is built on a lie?"
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"A lie that is collapsing as we speak," Eleanor said, taking a sip of black coffee. "Crawford Global has officially pulled its capital from Sterling Financial this morning. By noon, his board of directors will call an emergency meeting. By three o'clock, his stock will crash."
She reached across the table, taking my hand. "Richard Sterling wanted to make you feel helpless, Waverly. Now, we are going to give him the full measure of justice he deserves."
