I Decided To Surprise My Wife At Her Office She’s The Ceo. At The Entrance, A Sign Read…

The Search for Unit 214

The next morning, I called in sick to work for the first time in 6 years. I was a senior accountant at Monroe and Associates, a mid-sized firm in the loop.

It was a good job: stable and boring. It was the kind of career that pays the bills but doesn’t make for interesting dinner party conversation.

Lauren made three times what I made. I’d never resented that; her success was our success, or so I’d thought.

After Lauren left for work, kissing my forehead and telling me to feel better, I started really digging. I went through every drawer in her study, every file cabinet, and every box in her closet.

In the back of her jewelry drawer, hidden under a tangle of costume necklaces she never wore, I found a key. It was just a key, a silver standard apartment key with no label.

But attached to it was a keychain tag with an address: Harbor View Apartments, Unit 214. Harbor View was a luxury apartment complex in River North.

I’d driven past it dozens of times. It was a 30-story building with floor-to-ceiling windows, the kind of place where a studio started at $2,500 a month.

I grabbed the key and drove there. The parking garage had spaces marked with unit numbers.

Space 214 had a black Mercedes GLE parked in it. I recognized it from the company parking lot as Frank Sterling’s car.

My hands were shaking as I took the elevator up to the second floor and found Unit 214. The key fit and the door opened.

Inside was a fully furnished apartment, not a temporary rental, but a home. It had hardwood floors, modern furniture, and fresh flowers on the coffee table.

The air smelled like Lauren’s perfume, Chanel Number Five. It was the expensive one she only wore for special occasions.

Photos on the mantle showed Lauren and Frank at a beach, at a restaurant, and on a hiking trail. In every single picture, Lauren wasn’t wearing her wedding ring.

I walked through the apartment in a daze. The kitchen had two sets of dishes and two coffee mugs on the counter—his and hers.

The bedroom made me physically ill. It had a king-size bed with expensive linens.

Lauren’s clothes were in the closet, hanging next to Frank’s suits. Her shoes were lined up next to his like they’d been living together for years, like they were married.

On the dresser, I found a folder labeled “Future Plans” in Lauren’s distinctive handwriting. I opened it.

There were real estate listings for houses in Evston, Oak Park, and Wilmet, all in the $800,000 to $1.2, $2 million range. All were circled with notes in the margins like: “good schools nearby,” “schools close to Frank’s parents,” and “love the kitchen.”

There were travel brochures for Santorini, Tokyo, and New Zealand, marked as dream honeymoon destinations. And underneath all of that were legal documents—divorce consultation summaries dated from 18 months ago.

Lauren had met with three different divorce attorneys, shopping for the best deal. The notes were clinical and cold strategy.

They said: “Frame as irreconcilable differences. Cite Gerald’s lack of ambition and emotional distance. Document instances of his failure to support my career growth.”

Instances. She’d been building a case against me.

There were pages of examples: times I’d supposedly undermined her by asking her to skip work events, times I’d been emotionally unavailable by not wanting to discuss corporate politics at dinner, and times I’d shown lack of ambition by being content with my accounting job.

Every normal marital friction point was reframed as evidence of my inadequacy. The most recent note was dated 3 weeks ago.

It said: “Timeline: file for divorce by January 2025, finalized by June. Wedding with F by Christmas 2025.”

She had it all planned out, every detail. My replacement was already living with her part-time, and their future home was already picked out.

I was just the obstacle she needed to remove. I photographed everything: every page, every document, and every photo.

Then I sat on their couch—their couch, in their apartment, in their secret life. I tried to process the fact that my 28-year marriage had been a lie for at least 3 years.

The Paper Trail

I went back to my car and just drove. I had no destination; I just drove.

My phone rang at 3:47 p.m. It was Lauren.

I let it go to voicemail. She called again at 4:15 p.m., then 4:32 p.m., then sent a text.

The text said: “Where are you? Are you feeling better?”

I didn’t respond. At 6:00 p.m., I pulled into a parking lot and finally listened to her voicemails.

The first said, “Hey honey, just checking in. Hope you’re feeling better. Call me when you get this.”

The second said, “Gerald, I’m getting worried. You’re not answering. Are you okay? Seriously, where are you? I’m about to call hospitals. Please call me back.”

The concern in her voice sounded so real and so genuine. She was good—really good.

I called her back. She answered immediately and said, “Oh thank God. Where have you been? I was so worried.”

I replied, “Just drove around. Needed to clear my head. I’m fine.”

She said, “You scared me. Are you coming home?”

Home. What a joke.

I said, “Yeah. I’ll be there soon.”

She said, “Good. I’m leaving work early. I’ll pick up Thai food on the way. Your favorite.”

My favorite. She still remembered my favorite food and still pretended to care about the small details.

I said, “Sounds good.”

She said, “Love you.”

I replied, “Yeah. You too.”

I hung up before she could hear the crack in my voice. That night, we ate Thai food at our dining room table.

Lauren told me about her day: some crisis with a client, a difficult board member, and the usual corporate drama. I nodded in the right places, made appropriate comments, and played the role of supportive husband.

I did all this while knowing that in a few months, she planned to divorce me and marry Frank Sterling. After dinner, she suggested we watch a movie.

We settled on the couch, her head on my shoulder just like we’d done a thousand times before. Except now I could smell her perfume, the expensive one, and I knew she’d been at that apartment today living her other life with her other husband.

During a quiet moment in the movie, she said, “Gerald?”

I replied, “Yeah?”

She asked, “Are we okay? You seem distant.”

Distant. That word from her notes, part of her case against me.

I said, “I’m fine. Just not feeling great still.”

She squeezed my hand and said, “Okay. Let me know if you need anything.”

I said, “I will.”

We finished the movie and went to bed. She fell asleep almost immediately.

Years of running on caffeine and adrenaline had trained her to shut down completely when she finally crashed. I lay awake until 3:00 a.m. staring at the ceiling and planning my next move.

The next morning, I called in sick again. Lauren left for work at 7:15 a.m., kissing my forehead and telling me to rest.

The second she was gone, I went back to her study. I’d been an accountant for 22 years; I knew how to find financial irregularities.

Now that I knew what I was looking for, the pattern was obvious. Our joint checking account showed consistent deposits from both our paychecks.

Mine was $6,200 monthly after taxes. Lauren’s was roughly $11,000 monthly after taxes.

But our expenses—mortgage, utilities, groceries, insurance—everything came to about $8,500 monthly. We should have been saving about $8,700 a month.

Over 3 years, that should be over $300,000 in savings. Our savings account had $47,000.

Where had $250,000 gone? I pulled up Lauren’s personal credit card, the one she claimed was for business expenses that get reimbursed.

Harborview Apartments: $3,200 monthly rent for 3 years, totaling $115,200. Furniture: $24,000 in purchases from West Elm, Pottery Barn, and Crate and Barrel.

Travel: $31,000 to various luxury destinations. Dining: hundreds of charges at expensive restaurants.

She’d been funding her entire secret life with our joint money—my money. While I’d been eating leftovers and driving a 10-year-old Honda Civic, she’d been playing house with Frank Sterling in a $3,200 a month apartment using money I’d earned.

I documented everything. I downloaded 3 years of bank statements, credit card records, and investment account transfers.

Then I started looking at Meridian Technologies’ corporate filings. This was where my accounting background really paid off.

I knew how to read financial statements and how to spot irregularities. I knew how to see the story behind the numbers, and the story was damning.

Lauren had been restructuring the company quietly without board approval to position Frank Sterling as her successor. She’d moved resources into his department and given him control over key accounts.

She had positioned him for a promotion to COO, a position that didn’t exist yet. She was building him a golden ladder to the top while making herself look like a kingmaker.

But she’d done it by redirecting company resources without proper authorization. She had made financial decisions that benefited her personal relationship rather than shareholder interests.

That was corporate misconduct, possibly fraud. I took screenshots of everything, organized it into folders, and built a timeline.

Then I called Richard Morrison. Richard Morrison was the chairman of Meridian Technologies’ board of directors.

I’d met him twice at company events. He was a retired hedge fund manager, in his late 60s, and sharp as a tack.

When he answered, I said, “Gerald Hartman. Lauren’s husband. We met at the holiday party 2 years ago.”

He said, “Of course. How are you? Is Lauren all right?”

I replied, “She’s fine. I’m actually calling about some concerns I have regarding the company.”

There was a pause. He asked, “What kind of concerns?”

I said, “The kind that involve unauthorized corporate restructuring and misuse of company resources. Do you have time to meet today?”

There was another pause, longer this time. He said, “I can be at your office in 2 hours.”

I said, “I work from home. I’ll text you the address.”