Chapter 4
Diana Huang's office occupied a corner suite on the thirty-second floor of a glass tower on the Embarcadero.
The reception area was all pale wood and low-slung chairs, the kind of deliberate minimalism that broadcast expense.
A water feature burbled against one wall — smooth river stones, a thin sheet of water falling silently over them.
It was supposed to be calming. It wasn't.
She'd arrived twelve minutes early. A habit Sebastian used to tease her about.
You'd show up early to your own funeral, he'd said once, and she'd laughed, and he'd kissed her temple, and the memory stabbed through her now with such precision that she had to look away from the receptionist and study the framed artwork on the opposite wall.
Abstract, monochromatic. Chosen by someone who understood that divorcing women did not want to stare at landscapes of happy meadows.
"Mrs. Lowell? Diana's ready for you."
"Farrow," Juliet said. "Juliet Farrow."
The receptionist blinked, corrected something on her screen. "Of course. Right this way."
Diana Huang was shorter than Juliet had expected from their phone consultation — compact, sharp-shouldered, with reading glasses pushed up on her head and a handshake that was all business.
Her desk was stacked with tabbed folders, but the one she pulled to the center was thin.
Juliet's name was printed on the tab in block letters.
"Sit down. Coffee? Water?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. That's why you're here.
" Diana said it without cruelty, just flatly, the way she probably said everything.
She opened the folder. "I've had my team pull preliminary financials based on what's publicly available and what you provided last week.
I want to walk you through what we're looking at before we talk strategy. Sound good?"
Juliet nodded. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she made herself keep them still.
Diana turned a printed sheet toward her.
Numbers in columns, asset categories listed in clean rows.
"Your husband's net worth, as of the most recent SEC filings and the private valuations we could access through discovery channels, is in the range of one-point-four to one-point-seven billion.
That's not liquid — it's spread across Lowell Capital's fund holdings, the real estate portfolio, the foundation endowment which is separate, and roughly sixty million in personal assets. Homes, cars, art, accounts."
The numbers sat on the page like something from someone else's life.
Juliet had known Sebastian was wealthy. She had lived inside that wealth for nine years — the restored Edwardian, the trips to Tokyo and Portofino, the quiet way money smoothed every surface of their existence until friction itself seemed like something that happened to other people.
But seeing it itemized, reduced to rows and columns, made her stomach tighten.
"The prenup," Diana continued, flipping to a second page, "is standard for someone in his bracket. You signed it three months before the wedding. Your attorney at the time was — " she glanced down — "Mark Ellison, out of Palo Alto."
"He was a family friend. My mother's suggestion."
"He did an adequate job. The prenup protects Sebastian's pre-marital assets and the fund itself, but it includes a marital-property clause that's quite generous.
Anything acquired during the marriage — including appreciation on pre-marital holdings — is subject to equitable division. And there's an infidelity clause."
Juliet looked up.
Diana met her gaze. "Did you know about it?"
"I knew there was one. I don't remember the specifics."
"The specifics are good for you. In the event of proven infidelity by either party, the wronged spouse is entitled to sixty percent of marital property rather than the standard fifty. No contest provision."
"Sixty percent of marital property," Juliet repeated.
"Which, given the appreciation on Lowell Capital's holdings over the past seven years, is substantial.
We're talking somewhere north of two hundred million dollars, depending on how aggressively we value the fund's growth.
" Diana leaned back in her chair. "To be clear, that's the floor.
That's what the prenup guarantees you without a fight.
If we go to litigation and argue for broader discovery — which I recommend — we could push higher. "
The water feature burbled. Juliet stared at the number Diana had circled in blue ink at the bottom of the page. Two hundred and fourteen million. A conservative estimate, Diana had said. Conservative.
"You're very quiet," Diana said.
"I'm processing."
"Take your time. This is a lot."
It was a lot. It was also completely irrelevant to the thing that had broken inside her.
Two hundred million dollars did not un-send the flowers to Russian Hill.
It did not erase the hotel invoices or the carefully compartmentalized Tuesday evenings or the particular cruelty of a man who held his wife's hand at a foundation gala while his mistress waited across town in a one-bedroom he co-signed the lease on.
"What do you need from me?" Juliet asked.
"For now, just your authorization to proceed with formal discovery.
I'll file the petition, request full financial disclosure, and we go from there.
The infidelity clause means his team won't want this in front of a judge.
They'll push for mediation." Diana's mouth thinned.
"Which is their way of saying they'd like to make this go away quietly and for less money. "
"And what do you recommend?"
"I recommend we let them sweat. You hold the leverage here, Juliet. Use it."
#
She drove back across the bridge with the windows down, the July air warm and tasting faintly of salt. The bay was flat and blue, sailboats dotting the water in the distance. A perfect day, the kind San Francisco offered up three or four times a summer like an apology for all the fog.
Juliet pulled into the gravel driveway of Alix's cottage at quarter to two.
The door was unlocked, a half-eaten salad on the kitchen counter, and Alix's laptop open on the dining table with a spreadsheet glowing on the screen.
Alix worked from home three days a week — something about remote flexibility and a boss in Austin who didn't care where her project managers sat as long as the tickets closed.
"How'd it go?" Alix called from the back bedroom.
"She wants to file discovery."
Alix appeared in the doorway, hair piled in a clip, reading glasses on. "And?"
"And I'm apparently entitled to enough money to buy a small country."
"Define small."
Juliet dropped her bag on the braided rug and sank into the couch. The cushions were mismatched — one sage green, one mustard yellow — and the springs gave under her weight with a familiar creak. "Two hundred million. Maybe more."
Alix was quiet for three full seconds, which for Alix was an eternity. Then she crossed to the kitchen, poured two glasses of water, and brought one to Juliet. "Okay. So what are you going to do?"
"I don't know."
"You don't have to know today."
"Diana thinks I should let his team stew. Make them come to us."
"Diana sounds like she's good at her job."
"She is." Juliet drank. The water was cold, the glass sweating in her hand. "It feels wrong, though. Sitting around calculating percentages while my entire marriage is just — " She stopped. Set the glass on the side table. "I didn't marry him for money, Alix."
"I know that."
"Everyone else is going to think I did. Patricia Yee is going to write a column about the gold-digging wife who walked away with two hundred million."
"Patricia Yee can choke."
That startled a laugh out of her. Small, brittle, but real. Alix sat down on the other end of the couch and tucked her feet beneath her.
"Here's what I know," Alix said. "You gave up your business for that man. You spent two years folding yourself into his world — his schedule, his donors, his foundation dinners — and you did it because you loved him and because he asked you to. The money isn't a reward. It's what you're owed."
Juliet leaned her head back against the cushion and stared at the ceiling. A hairline crack ran from the light fixture to the corner. She traced it with her eyes. "He hasn't called."
"Good."
"It's been four days."
"Also good. It means the lawyers told him not to."
"Or it means he doesn't care enough to try."
Alix gave her a look. "The man sent forty dollars' worth of white roses to this address within eighteen hours of you moving in. He cares. He just cares the way rich men care — with logistics."
#
At four-thirty, Juliet's phone buzzed with a call from Diana Huang.
She picked up on the second ring, standing at the kitchen counter with a half-assembled stir-fry in front of her — bell peppers sliced, garlic minced, a bottle of sesame oil she'd found in the back of Alix's cabinet.
"Something came in this afternoon," Diana said. Her voice had a different quality than it had in the office — not warmer, exactly, but less controlled. Surprised, maybe. "From Sebastian's counsel."
"Already? You haven't even filed yet."
"That's what makes this unusual. His attorney — Graham Bask, senior partner at Whitfield Ross — sent over a restructuring agreement. Unsolicited."
Juliet set the knife down. "What kind of restructuring?"
"Sebastian has moved forty percent of his personal holdings into a protected trust with you as sole beneficiary. The trust is irrevocable — meaning he can't undo it, can't access it, can't use it as leverage in negotiations. It's yours regardless of the outcome of the divorce proceedings."
The kitchen was very quiet. The sesame oil gleamed in the late-afternoon light.