Chapter 10 - THE MISTRESS WHO DISAPPEARED
Jasmine stopped answering her phone the day after the attempted escrow transfer was discovered.
Her apartment was empty.
Her company email account had been disabled.
And according to her attorney, she was no longer in Massachusetts.
Aaron became almost frantic.
He called Olivia.
The general counsel.
Two board members.
Then me.
I didn't answer.
Whatever Jasmine had done, the investigation belonged to the appropriate authorities and Prescott Global's independent team.
I was no longer responsible for managing Aaron's crises.
Three days later, investigators located Jasmine in Miami.
She had traveled there after leaving Boston.
Garrett was also in Florida.
The financial investigation expanded to include the consulting payments, external information transfers, and attempted escrow withdrawal.
But Aaron was not automatically innocent simply because Jasmine was being investigated.
He had approved the original consulting arrangement.
He had failed to disclose their personal relationship.
He had allowed questionable expenses to continue after employees raised concerns.
And he had made decisions affecting Prescott Global's finances while pursuing his affair.
Those were his choices.
He couldn't blame Jasmine for all of them.
That week, an independent property review also produced new evidence concerning the Marblehead financing application.
The lender's records indicated that Aaron had approved the financing strategy and represented that he expected my property to become available as additional collateral.
The disputed electronic authorization had been submitted through Jasmine's account.
Investigators were still establishing who created the unauthorized signature.
But Aaron's involvement in the underlying transaction was no longer in doubt.
Nathan arranged for the contested documents to be formally withdrawn.
The lender confirmed that my property would not be encumbered under the application.
I finally slept through an entire night.
Then something unexpected happened.
Vivian Prescott contacted Harriet Ellis.
She requested a private meeting with Harborstone.
She wanted the investment firm to support Aaron's return as CEO.
In exchange, she offered to use her family's voting interests to support a refinancing proposal that would protect Harborstone's position.
Harriet declined to negotiate through an arrangement that bypassed the independent review.
Vivian became furious.
She threatened to rally the family's allies against Harborstone.
But her position was weaker than she understood.
Prescott Global's independent directors had already received evidence concerning the scholarship-fund transactions she authorized.
The board was reviewing whether she should remain involved in any company-affiliated charitable programs.
When I learned about her attempted intervention, I felt surprisingly little anger.
Vivian had spent years believing the Prescott name was enough to make people accommodate whatever her family wanted.
Now the documents mattered more than the surname.
Then Olivia's investigators recovered an email from Vivian to Jasmine.
It had been sent nearly a year earlier.
Vivian had instructed Jasmine to keep certain scholarship-program expenses outside the ordinary reporting package because Aaron was focused on the company's expansion.
Jasmine had replied:
Understood. Claire won't know anything about the arrangement.
I stared at the message.
The two women had not merely been dismissing me at family dinners.
May you like
They had been coordinating financial decisions while relying on Aaron's belief that his wife knew nothing about business.
And the man who kept telling me I was lucky to be Mrs. Prescott had been surrounded by people exploiting the same arrogance.
