Thirty-two weeks pregnant, I watched my husband walk into his family’s Christmas party with his mistress on his arm—and the $18,600 diamond necklace he’d secretly bought glittering around her neck.

I couldn't breathe. The opulent ballroom blurred at the edges as the absolute, crushing weight of my husband’s sociopathy settled over me.

“You married me for a piece of abandoned land?” I whispered, staring at the man I had shared a bed with for three years.

Matthias opened his mouth to speak, to spin another beautiful, intricate lie, but he couldn't find the words. The physical evidence was sitting right in my hands.

Fiona let out a sharp, breathless laugh. It was the sound of a woman whose own delusions had just violently shattered.

“You told me you were staying with her out of obligation,” Fiona said, turning to Matthias, her voice rising in hysterical disbelief. “You told me you were going to divorce her as soon as the Hensley deal closed and you secured the capital for us to move to London.”

Matthias closed his eyes, a muscle feathering angrily in his jaw. “Fiona, shut up.”

“You bought me this necklace to celebrate the final zoning approval!” she shrieked, her hand flying to her throat. She ripped the diamond clasp open, throwing the $18,600 piece of jewelry directly at his chest. The diamonds clattered loudly against the marble floor. “I was just a distraction! You were using me to handle the press while you stole your pregnant wife’s inheritance!”

“She’s not just stealing your inheritance, Evelyn,” Mara interjected, cutting through Fiona’s meltdown with brutal, terrifying efficiency. “He’s using your property to bury a nightmare. And when the truth comes out, your name is the one on the deed. You are the one who will go to federal prison.”