Chapter 3

"Yvonne's really loaded."

"More like Yvonne married well. She landed Christopher Sanchez."

"Huh? That's not right, is it? Didn't Christopher marry Eleanor Summers?"

"Your info's way out of date! Christopher thought Eleanor was some broke nobody, so he dumped her and married our lady VP, Yvonne."

"Yvonne's a VP? Oh my god! She's amazing!"

"Christopher and Yvonne are the ones who are perfect for each other! Eleanor's pretty, sure, but a broke girl like that can only marry some bottom-tier guy."

I stared at the camera feed on my phone, my face dark, just in time to catch Christopher laughing. "Yvonne, I'll take out a loan and buy a mansion. Then we can really show off in front of everyone from school."

"And I'll give every classmate a Louis Vuitton bag."

"Babe, you're so generous!"

The group chat exploded again.

"What? Christopher's giving everyone at the reunion a Louis Vuitton bag?"

"Oh my god, Christopher's rolling in it now!"

"Barely a year and he's this successful, and here I am still scraping to put food on the table!"

"Eleanor Summers isn't fit to shine his shoes, and she got to sleep with him for three years! Disgusting!"

...

Watching all these messages tearing me apart, my face went cold as frost.

An idea rose in my mind.

I called my brother. "Tristan, shut down the Red Hill Village redevelopment project."

Tristan Summers said, doting as always, "My little princess, you were the one who insisted on redeveloping that village in the first place. Now you want it stopped? What happened between you and Christopher?"

"Tristan, don't ask so much. Just stop it." I put on my sweetest voice.

"All right, all right."

I told him to hold off on announcing the halt for now.

I wanted to wait until Christopher took out his loan and bought the mansion, then make it known to the whole world.

By then I'd have my brother find a reason to fire both Christopher and Yvonne James.

And then, at the reunion, I'd reveal in grand style that I was the daughter of the richest family in the country.

I hadn't meant to tell my brother anything, but the man could talk, and in a few quick moves he'd pried the divorce out of me.

"Good riddance!"

Tristan burst out laughing. "Little sis, a man who doesn't value the relationship isn't worth your love. Listen to your big brother, you're better off without him. Don't be sad."

"If you want a man, I can haul over a whole truckload for you to pick from. Handsome ones, celebrities, national heartthrobs, whatever you like."

I flushed red. "What are you talking about? You think this is some royal selection?"

"Ha, our Summers girl has every right to it!"

"Tristan, I'm hanging up. I'm heading home."

I drove home.

The moment I saw Mom and Dad, I threw myself into their arms, the hurt spilling over into tears. "Mom, Dad..."

They'd already heard from Tristan that I'd divorced, and instead of blaming me, they looked relieved.

"He threw you away over a measly hundred million?"

"Don't waste another thought on a man like that."

They kept comforting me, and Mom went into the kitchen herself to make my favorite, pineapple-glazed steak.

While I ate, Mom said my mother-in-law was too calculating, and that Christopher had never been willing to spend on me. He'd barely even bought me a latte.

"So the divorce is a good thing. Your dad and I were actually going back and forth on whether to let you inherit that little company worth a hundred billion. But we were afraid his family would use it to control you. Now that you've divorced, it's all worked out for the best."

I settled in at home with an easy mind.

The next day, Christopher went to take out his loan and buy the mansion.

He only had a few hundred thousand to his name, and the down payment alone was at least three million, so his only option was a loan shark.

He borrowed three million, due back at three and a half million in four days. The interest was brutal.

The loan shark warned him, "If you don't have the three and a half million in four days, I break your legs, and your sister comes to sleep with me."

They looked Tessa Sanchez over and swallowed hard.

Soon enough, Christopher headed out to the Hillcrest Estates and bought a mansion.

Yvonne posted it all over her feed.

The photo grid was full of the mansion, inside and out, every angle touched up, plus a shot of her standing in front of it holding the deed in one hand, her fingers laced through Christopher's with the other.

Caption: For the rest of my life, rain on the leaves, stargazing under the moon, walking through every season with you.

A lot of people liked it and left comments.

"Gorgeous mansion!"

"You two are so happy together!"

"A broke girl like Eleanor Summers really didn't deserve Chris!"

"Don't even bring up Eleanor Summers, bad luck!"

Everyone from school heaped praise on Christopher and Yvonne, and when my name came up, it was nothing but savage put-downs.

That night.

I opened the camera feed inside Christopher's place.

Wendy Lawrence and Tessa had taken money off Christopher and gone out to enjoy themselves.

Christopher had his arm around Yvonne on the couch, the two of them talking.

"So, the baby's over two months along now. When are you going to marry me?"

My heart sank. So it turned out they'd been at it for a long time already.