My Husband Had Two Children With His Secretary and Blamed Me for Being Childless, Then His Doctor Asked One Question That Wiped the Smile From His Face

The board meeting was held the following Monday at Voss Meridian’s headquarters, a glass tower on Wacker Drive with the company’s name in steel letters over the lobby doors. There were nine directors around a long walnut table on the forty-second floor.

Two weeks earlier, Judge Strasser had issued a temporary order confirming me as acting trustee of the Voss Marital Trust while the divorce went forward. That meant I now voted Martin’s fifty-four percent of the company’s shares.

I walked into that boardroom in a navy suit I hadn’t worn in nine years. It still fit. Margaret walked beside me with her briefcase. Howard Lindqvist walked behind us with three binders.

Martin was already there, sitting at the head of the table where he’d sat for eleven years. He looked up when I came in, and to my surprise, he stood up and moved to a chair along the side wall.

“It’s your seat, Evie,” he said quietly. “It’s your vote.”

Adrian sat halfway down the table in his usual chair, in a perfect charcoal suit, his face calm and blank. He didn’t look at Martin. He didn’t look at me.

Howard presented for ninety minutes. He covered the Lakeshore Hospitality invoices, the forty percent markups, and the monthly transfers to the Cayman account. He showed the $1.87 million total, then Section 14.3 of the credit agreement naming Adrian as the Designated Successor, and the $50 million key-person policy that would have paid out to a company Adrian controlled.

When Howard finished, the boardroom was dead silent.

The chairman of the audit committee, a retired Boeing executive named Gerald Whitcomb, finally spoke.

“Adrian,” he said. “Do you have anything to say?”

Adrian folded his hands on the table.

“I’d like to consult with my attorney before I say anything,” he said calmly.

“That’s your right,” Gerald said. “But I’m going to say something, and I want it in the minutes.” He looked down the table. “Heinrich Voss hired me in 1991. He sat in that chair and told me this company was built on one principle: you never take what isn’t yours. Not a dollar, not a mile of road, not a customer, not a man’s good name.” He shook his head. “Adrian, your father would be ashamed of you.”

Adrian’s jaw tightened, just slightly. It was the only crack I ever saw in him.

The votes took less than ten minutes. Adrian Voss was removed as Chief Financial Officer and from the board of directors for cause, nine votes to none. The Designated Successor provision was struck from the credit agreement, and the banks were notified the same afternoon. The $50 million key-person policy was canceled.

The board voted to refer everything to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois: the Lakeshore invoices, the Cayman account, and the wire records. The audit committee authorized the company to sue Adrian and Clara to recover every dollar.

Then Gerald Whitcomb turned to Martin, sitting quietly against the wall.

“Martin,” he said. “You approved $1.1 million in personal expenses through this company’s books. That’s a breach of your duty to this company, whether or not you knew your brother was skimming off the top.”

“I know,” Martin said quietly. “I’ll pay it back. All of it. With interest.”

“And your position as CEO?”

Martin looked at me.

“That’s not my decision anymore,” he said.

It wasn’t my decision either, not alone. I had the votes to keep Martin as CEO, and I had the votes to fire him. Every director at that table was watching me.

I thought about it for a long moment.

Then I said, “I move that Martin Voss be placed on immediate unpaid leave as Chief Executive Officer, pending the outcome of an independent review by outside counsel. I move that he repay $1,104,600 to the company, the full amount of personal expenses identified in Mr. Lindqvist’s report, plus interest at the federal prime rate, within ninety days. And I move that the board begin a search for an interim CEO.”

“Second,” said Gerald Whitcomb.

It passed nine to zero. Martin voted his remaining personal shares in favor. He didn’t have many.

After the meeting, when the directors had filed out and the room was empty except for the two of us, Martin stood by the window looking down at the Chicago River, forty-two floors below.

“You could have fired me,” he said. “You had the votes.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I joined him at the window. Far below, a tour boat was making its way under the Michigan Avenue bridge.

“Because your father didn’t build this company so that one bad decision would end your life,” I said. “He built it so that the people who work here would always have a place to go. Twenty-two hundred employees, Martin. Truck drivers, warehouse workers, dispatchers. They don’t deserve chaos because the Voss brothers couldn’t keep their lives in order.”

He nodded slowly.

“And because you didn’t steal,” I said. “You were vain, and foolish, and cruel to me. But you didn’t steal. Adrian did. That’s different.”

Martin was quiet for a long time.

“I treated you terribly, Evie,” he said finally. “For years. I made you feel like it was your fault we couldn’t have children. I let Clara say that to your face. I let my mother say it. I said it.” His voice cracked. “And the whole time, you knew the truth, and you protected me from it.”

“I didn’t protect you,” I said. “I protected myself. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?”

“There is now,” I said.