Chapter 3

The moment they left, I called my lawyer, Julian.

"Activate the trust," I said. "The one my father set up."

A trust designed for exactly this: Eleanor remarrying someone like Richard Thorne.

It firewalled a significant portion of the original Moreau family assets from her, from him.

Next, I called my studio manager.

"Cut all resource flow from my independent design studio to Moreau-Thorne. Effective immediately. No shared projects, no shared funds, no shared anything."

My designs, my intellectual property, were mine alone.

My phone buzzed again. Marcus.

A series of photos.

Izzy and Marcus. On trips.

Posing in the same spots Izzy and I had visited on our honeymoon.

The same smiles, the same staged affection.

Captions: "To my beloved Marcus." "Our secret getaways."

Each photo was a twist of the knife.

He was mocking me, showing me how long, how deep the deception ran.

The life I thought I had, a carefully constructed lie.

My father had seen this possibility. He' d tried to protect me.

And I, blinded by what I thought was love, had walked right into their trap.

The rage was cold now, settling deep.

They thought they had won. They had no idea what was coming.

The trust was just the first step.

Julian confirmed the trust was active. Eleanor wouldn't know until she tried to access those specific assets.

Which she would, soon.

The photos from Marcus kept coming. Each one more blatant.

He wanted to break me.

He was fueling my resolve.