Chapter 4

"I was wondering when you'd show up."

Ethan's mother, Eleanor Sterling, sat in an antique armchair, sipping tea from a delicate porcelain cup. She didn't even look up when I walked into her parlor.

"Eleanor, I have a few questions."

I unlocked my phone and laid the photos in front of her—the pictures of Ethan, Victoria, and the little boy playing in the yard.

"Who is this woman? And whose child is that?"

Eleanor took a slow sip of her tea, completely unfazed.

"Victoria Vane. Ethan's high school sweetheart. And that’s Leo, his son."

She said it so casually, as if she were reading the weather report.

"The boy is six. He looks exactly like Ethan. If you don't believe me, you're welcome to check the Sterling family tree. We registered him the year he was born."

I clenched my fists.

"He has a son, and you all kept it from me for seven years?"

"Kept it from you?" Eleanor finally looked at me, her gaze cold and dismissing, like she was looking at an expired coupon.

"Audrey, get real. Why do you think Ethan married you?"

She set her cup down with a sharp clink.

"That commercial lot your father left you is the only thing keeping the Sterling Group afloat. Your dad bought it for almost nothing fifteen years ago. Now, with two subway lines running through it, that land is worth at least seventy million dollars."

"Marrying you was just a business transaction to get the land. Now that the land is ours, you're done."

"Victoria is the woman Ethan actually loves. You—"

She looked at me, her lips curling into a mocking smile.

"You were nothing but a glorified pen to sign the paperwork."

My body was shaking, but I forced myself to stand tall.

"I haven't signed the final transfer documents."

"Oh, really?"

Eleanor picked up an iPad and slid her finger across the screen before turning it toward me.

It was a live security feed of my living room.

The camera was hidden inside a decorative sculpture on the console table, angled perfectly to capture the living room and the entrance to the study.

"On Tuesday at 2:13 AM, you got out of bed and spent seven minutes eavesdropping at the study door. On Wednesday, you poured your tea into the snake plant. Last week, you took a sample of the tea to a private lab..."

She listed every single one of my movements with terrifying precision.

"We have everything on record. You searching his drawers, taking photos, visiting the lab... You look like a textbook case of a paranoid, delusional wife."

"If you don't cooperate, these videos will be submitted to the court along with a psychiatric evaluation. Every document you signed in the past will be deemed legally valid because you signed them when you were 'lucid.' But your current behavior? It prove you’ve lost your mind."

The heavy oak doors of the parlor opened.

Ethan walked in.

The warm, gentle husband was gone. His face was a cold, hard mask.

"Audrey, stop fighting it. Sign the final transfer papers, and I’ll write you a check for two million dollars. You can walk away with your dignity. Let's make this clean."

He tapped his phone screen, showing me a clip of me frantically searching his study—my hair was messy, my eyes wild with panic. I looked completely unstable.

"If this leaks to the press, who do you think the public will believe? You, or me?"

"After all, I’m the city’s favorite devoted husband."

I took a step back. Then another.

In my pocket, my phone vibrated silently.

I glanced down. It was a text from an unknown number:

*[Ms. Audrey, I am Victoria’s former personal driver. She ruined my life, and I have all the receipts you need. Tomorrow at 10:00 AM, the coffee shop next to the federal courthouse. Come alone.]*

I locked my phone and looked back up at Ethan.

"Fine. Let me think about it. I’ll give you my answer in three days."

Ethan smiled, satisfied.

"Now that's the smart Audrey I married."