Too Rich for My Cheating Husband

Claire Sloane, heiress to the Cartwright family, concealed her identity to marry Edward Sloane, a man of humble means. She gave him five million dollars to start his business, then spent ten years as the perfect wife while Sloane Realty grew toward a ten-billion-dollar valuation. Every wife in Maple Grove envied her.

That image breaks when Dr. Martin Barreit, the family doctor who served the Sloanes for ten years, points Claire toward the old basement Edward sealed off. Inside, Claire finds a secret office, bank statements, a villa owner named Fiona Reed, and a letter to a beloved Fiona about a baby. Fiona lives seven minutes away. Edward has sent her one hundred thousand dollars on the fifteenth of every month. Claire’s perfect marriage is a cover for another family.

Claire brings the findings to Will Lockhart, her personal attorney. Will confirms Fiona is Edward’s former executive assistant, unemployed, eight months pregnant with a boy, and living on Edward’s money. Claire also learns the ten years without children were not about her. Edward was practically infertile, refused IVF, and told her he could not bear to see her suffer. He simply did not want a child with her.

Will digs deeper. On paper Edward owns forty-eight percent of Sloane Realty. Through Cayman offshore accounts and Nathan, his old college classmate, Edward actually controls seventy-eight percent. He has moved thirty million dollars through fake contracts, with two accounts under Fiona’s name. Three more properties exist in the Hamptons, Aspen, and downtown Chicago. Edward has already drafted a divorce: Claire waives all marital property and receives three hundred thousand dollars because of her inability to bear children. Fiona is due the fifteenth of next month.

Ten years earlier, Claire left the Cartwright name after her mother died in an abandoned warehouse. She blamed her father, Harrison Cartwright, for arriving too late, and chose Edward. Now she returns to her father. She signs for her mother’s thirty-four percent stake plus his forty-one percent, taking control of Cartwright Industries. Harrison had secretly kept Sloane Realty’s suppliers and bank loans afloat. Claire wants Edward to watch everything he built fall in front of everyone.

At the charity gala for Victoria Sloane, Edward’s mother, the humiliation goes public. Victoria has Edward bring Fiona to the head table and gives her the Tears of Sorrow crown, naming Fiona’s unborn child the Sloane family’s only heir. Guests mock Claire. Claire has already uncovered Nathan’s nominee shareholding and money laundering, and she warns Nathan and Tiffany that she will deal with them later. The gala is her setup, and Edward still does not know his wife is a Cartwright.