Laying completely still on the floor I listened to my husband and his
family casually plot my absolute financial ruin over glasses of morning champagne. Eleanor expressed cruel relief that Eric was finally doing something useful since she always felt he lived like a mere guest in my house. My home actually belonged to my late grandmother and was fully paid off in my name long before I even met Eric. I learned that Richard desperately needed a massive loan to save his failing tech business called Nebula Systems and the man with the briefcase was a corrupt broker helping them secure it. They planned to use my forged signature and a fake notary stamp to take out a huge commercial credit line against my beloved property. Eric calmly detailed his evil intention to lock all our joint accounts once my flight landed and file for divorce on Monday while claiming I had run off to Europe with their money. My heart raced in absolute terror as Richard then asked about a staggering sum of nearly half a million dollars that had already been drained from my secondary accounts over the past two years without my knowledge.
