I was the one who begged my parents to take her in, to raise her like a second daughter.

I never imagined that behind the warmth she showed me, behind calling me her sister, she had been consumed by jealousy all along.

The year I turned eighteen, someone leaked confidential information from my father's company, plunging it into crisis.

My parents' marriage shattered too, torn apart by the other woman. They divorced.

I was devastated. All I wanted was to find my boyfriend, Jackson, and cry on his shoulder.

I pushed open the door to his apartment.

And found him tangled in bed with Millicent, my best friend, both of them naked under the sheets.

I found out later that it had started three months earlier, on the very night I'd had that fight with Arthur. She'd climbed into Jackson's bed of her own accord.

Twenty years of a sheltered, privileged life had left me hopelessly naive. I truly believed that sincerity would always be met with sincerity. That the people closest to me were as honest and open-hearted as I was.

So when I saw them, I broke.

I screamed. I lost control. I demanded answers like a woman possessed.

"How could you do this to me?"

"I treated you both like family! I would've ripped my own heart out and laid it bare for you. How could you betray me like this?"

Jackson scrambled for the sheets, yanking them over his body. The color drained from his face in an instant.

"You... why are you here? I thought you were helping your father with the company today."

Millicent shrank behind him, eyes rimmed with red, looking fragile and pitiful.

"I'm sorry, Lucille. I didn't mean for this to happen. Jackson and I are truly in love. Please don't blame him..."

Truly in love?

I laughed like I'd just heard the most absurd joke in the world. Laughed until tears spilled down my cheeks and blurred my vision so badly I couldn't even make out the faces of the two people in front of me.

"Millicent, how dare you say something like that?"

"Have you no shame? If you wanted a man, any man, I would've set you up. Why did you have to steal mine?"

I lunged at her and slapped her across the face, but Jackson shoved me away.

He pulled Millicent behind him, brow furrowed, his voice dripping with impatience and cold indifference.

"Are you done?"

"What's done is done. You can scream yourself hoarse and it won't change a thing!"