Chapter 4

The whispers started immediately. I stood there, disheveled and breathing hard, as the other parents who had gathered in the hallway stared at me. Their faces were a mixture of shock, pity, and contempt.

"Can you believe her? Attacking Mrs. Gould like that."

"I heard she's Austyn Hester's mistress. He must have finally dumped her."

"And she broke that necklace! That thing must be worth millions. She'll never be able to pay for that."

Their words buzzed around me. Mrs. Gould. They kept calling Evalena 'Mrs. Gould'. And they called Jaylin 'Mr. Gould's son'. Now they were calling Austyn her husband. The lies were so thick, so complete, that they had created an entirely new reality. A reality where I was the outsider, the homewrecker.

A cold dread washed over me. This wasn't just about a stolen doll or a necklace. This was a calculated, long-term plan to erase me from my own life.

I remembered bringing Evalena into our home.

She was Austyn's distant cousin from some forgotten town, down on her luck with a young son. Austyn had begged me to give her a job, to help her get on her feet.

I'd been so focused on my work, on providing for my family, that I had agreed without a second thought. I had been generous. I had been kind. And I had been a fool.

All those business trips, all those late nights at the office... they weren't just absences.

They were opportunities. Opportunities for Austyn, the handsome "trophy husband" who married into my family's wealth, and his conniving cousin to usurp my position. They had slowly taken over, not just my home and my possessions, but my very identity.

People at my own daughter's school, a school my family's foundation generously funded, thought I was a nobody. They thought Austyn was the source of the family's power.

I looked at Evalena, still sobbing on the floor, clutching the broken clasp of my necklace. I had to expose her.

"She is Evalena Dotson!" I yelled, my voice raw. "She's my housekeeper! She's his cousin!"

Evalena's head snapped up, her eyes flashing with venom. She scrambled to her feet, pointing a trembling finger at me. "You liar! How dare you! After everything I've done for you, letting you stay in our guesthouse, pretending to be my friend, all while you were sleeping with my husband! You're a disgusting, pathetic snake!"

She played the part of the wronged wife perfectly. The tears, the righteous anger, the trembling voice-it was a masterful performance.

I was stunned into silence by the sheer audacity of her lies. She had twisted everything, turning my kindness into a weakness, my absence into an affair.

She knew exactly what she was doing. She wasn't just a simple thief. She was a predator who had been studying her prey for years, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

"You," I said, my voice low and shaking with a fury that eclipsed everything I'd felt before. "How dare you."