Chapter 4

The guardianship was approved on the sixth day.

Richard worked quickly, and since Edward was in no condition to express his wishes, I was authorized as his spouse to handle all his financial affairs. The court issued the order that very day, and I took it straight to the bank.

Over the next three days, I hit up six banks, two brokerage firms, and one trust company.

It was even more complicated than I'd expected.

Edward's assets were split into three categories.

The first chunk was company equity, over sixty percent of his total assets.

The company was set up after we got married, so technically it counts as marital assets, but some of the original funding came from The Grant Family, and that part still needs to be untangled.

The second chunk was real estate, four homes in total, two bought before the marriage, two after.

The third chunk was financial assets like stocks, funds, trusts, and some offshore account I had no clue about.

There was 7.7 million dollars just sitting in that offshore account.

The account was set up two years ago.

That was right after Chloe found out she was pregnant.

I sat in Richard's office and looked at those numbers. I took a deep breath and made myself stay steady.

"What's the deal with this account?" I asked.

Richard adjusted his glasses. "Looking at the transactions, the money's all from dividends, his domestic company's overseas subsidiaries send over a chunk every quarter. That's how it piled up to 7.7 million dollars."

He pointed at the screen. "And the beneficiary is Chloe White."

I stared at that line for a long time.

[Beneficiary: Chloe White.]

"Ms. Bennett," Richard said, "if the money in this account was earned from assets you and Edward built together after marriage, and he named Chloe as the beneficiary without your say, that's basically him giving away your shared property behind your back. Legally, it doesn't hold up."

"But to actually prove it, we'd need to take it to court," he added.

"Yeah, it'll take a while. But since we've got guardianship now, we can freeze the account, so the money doesn't disappear while we're fighting this out," he said.

I nodded. "Freeze it."

"Alright. Also," he pulled out a sheet from the folder, "my assistant put together a full breakdown of every cent Edward sent to Chloe over the past three years.

"That includes living expenses, real estate, cars, designer stuff, everything adds up to over 3.7 million dollars."

Over three million in three years.

I've been married to him for five years, and I never touched a dime of his money. It wasn't that I couldn't. I just always kept my finances separate and never got used to spending his cash.

It turned out, not spending his money was the smartest move I ever made.

"Can we get that money back?" I asked.

"That's right. If he transferred marital assets to a third party during the marriage, you have the right to pursue recovery of those funds," Richard replied.

I closed the folder. "Richard, put together a full legal strategy for me. I want everything ready to go at a moment's notice."

"Understood. But—" he hesitated, "when are you planning to lay it all out for The Grant Family?"

I stood up and grabbed my bag.

"When Edward can talk again," I said.

"Why wait for him?" he asked.

"Because I want to lay out everything he's done, right in front of him, so he can see it for himself," I replied.

Richard just looked at me, saying nothing.

I reached the door, then turned back and added, "He owes me an explanation, and I want him to give it to me when he's fully conscious."

As I left the law firm, my phone lit up with a message from Michael.

Michael: [Ms. Bennett, Mr. Grant spoke today. His voice is weak, but the doctors say he's coming around.]

I stared at the message, a faint smirk curling at my lips.

Good. He was waking up.

Things got interesting once he was awake.