Chapter 1 - The Gilded Betrayal
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The chandelier light fractured into a thousand icy shards across the ballroom of the Dre family estate, but the cold I felt had nothing to do with the winter draft. I had been standing beside the massive stone fireplace for forty-three minutes. My feet ached with a dull, throbbing intensity inside my designer heels, and our unborn daughter kicked sharply beneath the fabric of my burgundy maternity dress.
Matthias had promised to pick me up at seven. Instead, he had sent a text citing a vague, last-minute situation downtown, leaving me to arrive alone and endure the judging stares of his wealthy relatives.
Then the heavy double doors at the front of the hall swung open.
My husband walked into the room, and he was not alone. Fiona Vale was holding his arm, her fingers resting against the dark fabric of his tailored suit jacket as though she had every right to be there. She wore a stunning ivory dress that clung perfectly to her figure, but it was the jewelry at her throat that made my breath catch. Glittering fiercely against her collarbone was an $18,600 diamond necklace—the exact necklace whose receipt I had found tucked inside Matthias’s coat pocket just three weeks earlier.
He caught my eye across the crowded room. He didn’t drop her arm. He guided Fiona through the sea of sixty relatives, bankers, and investors, nodding to his father’s business partners before finally stopping in front of me.
“You made it,” Matthias said, leaning in to kiss my cheek as if this were perfectly normal.
I did not flinch, but I did not lean into his touch either. Fiona stood beside him, accepting a flute of champagne from a passing waiter with a serene, practiced smile.
“You were supposed to pick me up,” I reminded him, keeping my voice dangerously level.
“I told you, an emergency came up downtown,” he replied smoothly, adjusting his cufflinks.
May you like
I turned my gaze to the woman beside him, letting my eyes drop deliberately to the diamonds at her throat.
“She seems like an expensive situation,” I said.
