And now, here was Austin, personally overseeing every detail of Kathy's birthday gala. A blue-and-white porcelain vase worth hundreds of thousands of dollars sat on display as mere decoration.
Every detail had been planned to perfection.
But I couldn't bear to watch anymore.
I nearly lost control more than once. I wanted to storm up there, to slap him across the face so hard my palm would sting for days.
I wanted to demand answers. Why did you lie to me for three years? Just because I made Kathy work as a maid for three days?
I wanted to tear off my clothes and show him every scar, every wound I'd collected over these three years.
But in the end, I did nothing.
I watched the man who should have been behind bars for three more days. He stood there in a suit that cost more than everything I owned, looking every inch the ruthless tycoon.
He pulled Kathy—his little princess—into his arms, his face soft with adoration as he wished her a happy birthday.
Then I turned away, expressionless, and went back to my basement rental.
Dark. Damp. I'd lived here for three years.
The bathroom was right by the door. Mold crept across the walls in patches that had accumulated over months, years. The smell of rot drifted through the air without warning.
When I first moved in, I threw up every single day.
For the first twenty-five years of my life, I'd been pampered. The precious eldest daughter of the Sanchez family. I'd never known a day of hardship.
I was an internationally renowned painter. Awards lined my shelves—so many I'd lost count.
At the height of my success, Austin Vance—the golden heir of the Vance family—got down on one knee and proposed.
After we married, he spoiled me even more.
Just like that, I'd become the woman every girl dreamed of being. The media called me "life's winner."
Until Austin hired a timid, soft-spoken secretary named Kathy Barnes.
She was the daughter of my family's housekeeper, yet she competed with me at every turn.
Her clothes weren't as fine as mine, so she mocked me as a useless trophy wife.
Her skills couldn't match mine, so she whispered behind my back that I'd either been born lucky or slept my way to the top.
Worse still, she'd schemed her way into becoming Austin's secretary—and never missed a chance to poison him against me.
She told him I bullied her mother at home. That I ruined her clothes.
That I'd forced her to kneel and serve me like a maid.