Palimony Protected

Aug. 25, 2006 — -- The jury awarded Peggy Horvath $10 million -- one of the largest sums ever awarded an unmarried woman whose boyfriend left her. Her boyfriend, Bill Hubner, appealed that April 2004 decision.

The case never went through the appeals process, though. Hubner settled out of court with Horvath for an undisclosed portion of the money and assets the jury awarded.

Read on for more details from our original story, dated May 13, 2005.

For 17 years, Peggy Horvath lived a life she had only dreamed of as a girl. She jetted around the world, dined in the finest restaurants, and hobnobbed with celebrities as the lover, companion and -- she says -- employee of Bill Hubner, a powerful businessman who had built a half billion-dollar fitness empire and owned luxurious homes all over the country.

"He was very powerful and he had a way of looking at you and making you think that nobody was on the Earth but you," Horvath said.

But her lavish lifestyle came to an end as their love turned to bitterness and Hubner "terminated" their personal and business relationship. Their story is a surprising example of what can happen when an ultra-rich couple -- who never marry -- split up and go separate ways.

Horvath said she and Hubner met at a party in Beverly Hills, Calif., in August 1983. She was a 22-year-old, impressionable college senior. He was 49. She said Hubner asked her out to lunch -- in Lake Tahoe -- and took her there aboard his private jet. "I would say he swept me off my feet," she said.

Despite their age difference, the romance blossomed. Horvath found him charming and persuasive, and she soon moved in with him, setting aside her dreams of going to law school.

"He just said, 'You've been to the University of Michigan. Now you're going to Hubner U,' " Horvath told "20/20."

Horvath, a small-town girl from Michigan, was soon enjoying the life of a well-connected jet-setter with Hubner. She socialized with Hollywood stars, became acquainted with the first President Bush and even had a private audience with Pope John Paul II. Horvath was happy, and she wanted to spend the rest of her life with Hubner.

"Bill just had this way of making me feel like I was a princess on a pedestal. It was exciting. It was magic. It was fairy tale-like," she said.

Horvath says she was also fulfilled professionally, managing parts of Hubner's business and running his many homes. But as she reached her mid-20s, she began to worry about her future. Hubner had twice been divorced. He had four grown children, and there was no talk of marriage.