Chapter 2

The doorbell rang.

Spencer turned to answer it.

Vivienne was standing in the doorway.

She was wearing a silk slip dress. Barely anything at all. Eleven o'clock at night. In her hands, a thermos container.

"Spencer, I heard your stomach was bothering you at dinner. I made you some soup."

Her gaze drifted past Spencer and landed on me.

"Oh — Mrs. Caldwell. You're here too."

I looked at Spencer.

"You invited her?"

He didn't deny it. He didn't even seem to find it strange.

"Vivienne is more thoughtful than you. She's thinking about my health at midnight. If you had half her consideration, maybe I wouldn't need to look elsewhere."

I went still.

He cheated. Because I wasn't considerate enough.

Vivienne stood in the doorway, eyes downcast, voice gentle as silk.

"Spencer, don't say that. Mrs. Caldwell works hard at home, in her own way. I know you complain to me that you don't have much in common with her — that she's like a piece of furniture. But I know you're a responsible man. You wouldn't abandon the woman you built your life with."

Her mouth said the words of someone humble.

But when she lowered her head, the corner of her lip curved up.

I stepped forward to close the door.

Vivienne suddenly screamed.

"Don't grab me!"

She stumbled backward, knocking her shoulder into the doorframe. The thermos hit the floor, soup splashing across her dress.

She crouched on the ground, clutching her leg, crying out in pain.

I hadn't touched her.

But Spencer hadn't seen the beginning.

He only saw the end.

His palm came across my face.

My head snapped to one side. Half my face blazed.

By the time I found myself again, Spencer was already kneeling beside Vivienne, frantically checking whether she'd been scalded. He grabbed a scarf from the entryway hook — the one I'd spent three weeks knitting last winter — and used it to wipe the soup from her leg.

"Mara, I am done," he said, without turning around.

He carried Vivienne out, one arm around her, his voice low and soothing.

"It's all right. I'm taking you to the hospital. I'll handle her."

Vivienne looked back at me as they left.

The look in her eyes said everything.

The next evening was the charity gala.

Booked a month in advance.

The bruise on my cheek took three layers of concealer.

At the entrance to the venue, I saw Spencer.

He was wearing bespoke black tie, Vivienne on his arm. She was in an emerald evening gown.

My eyes went to her neck.

A diamond necklace.

I recognized it.

Spencer and I had commissioned it together for our first wedding anniversary. I had drawn the original design.

Now it was on Vivienne's throat.

I walked up to them. "Spencer. That necklace is mine."

Spencer's eyes went cold. "Mara, not here. Don't embarrass yourself."

Vivienne touched the pendant with two fingers, her expression perfectly innocent. "Mrs. Caldwell, this dress is quite particular about jewellery. Spencer insisted — he said I'd love it. I told him I really didn't want to take it, in case it upset you — but you know how he is when he's decided something."

I stared at Spencer.

He didn't look at me. He took Vivienne's arm and walked into the ballroom.

I followed.

The room was full of London's business elite. I had barely lifted a glass of champagne when I saw Vivienne heading toward me, red wine in hand.

Before I could step aside—

She slipped.

Her entire body pitched forward directly into a tall antique vase on its display stand. The wine flew from her glass. Her weight crashed into the vase.

It toppled.

It shattered.

The crack silenced the room.

Every head turned.

Vivienne was on the floor, pointing at me, screaming:

"It was her! Mrs. Caldwell was jealous — she shoved me from behind!"

Every eye in the room fell on me.

I was standing still, champagne glass in hand, at least half a metre away from her.

No one spoke in my defence.

The event director came striding over, his face ashen. "That vase is a seventeenth-century piece from the personal collection of a European royal house. Estimated value: three million pounds. Mrs. Caldwell, I need an explanation."

Spencer came through the crowd.

In that moment, I thought — even if only to protect his own reputation in front of this room — he would at least ask what happened.

Instead: "Mara. Get on your knees and apologize to Vivienne."

I stared at him. "I'm sorry?"

"I said kneel." He raised his voice, every word saturated with contempt. "You've been tormenting her for weeks. This is too far."

He pulled out his phone and called his bank directly. "Cancel every supplementary card under my wife's name. Yes. All of them. Now."

Then he looked at me.

"Kneel and admit what you did. I'll cover the three million."

Around us, the whispers began.

"That's the housewife who rode her father's coattails, isn't it?"

"Jealous of a younger woman, so she shoves her? In public?"

"Three million. What's she going to do without Spencer's money?"

Vivienne was on the floor, shoulders shaking with sobs. Her eyes were dry.

The event's security team approached me.

I took one step back.

"I won't kneel."