The maid led me through a service corridor and down one floor using an employee stairwell. At the end of the hall, she stopped beside a partially open conference-room door and pointed inside. My husband, Daniel, was there wearing the same T-shirt he had gone to sleep in. Across from him sat a woman I recognized immediately from photographs on his old college account—his former girlfriend, Melissa. Between them was a leather folder and a stack of documents.

The maid explained that she had entered the room earlier to deliver towels and overheard Melissa telling Daniel they needed my signature before morning. One document concerned a property Daniel and I jointly owned; another appeared to authorize money to be moved from an investment account. Daniel had apparently planned to wake me later, claim there had been an emergency with our financial adviser, and ask me to sign without reading everything carefully.