Chapter 4

Andrew didn't stop there. He looked back at Sabrina, his eyes boring into her.

"The 'scandal' you so publicly speak of," he said, his voice dripping with contempt, "was my wife rushing to Las Vegas to pull you, Sabrina, out of a hotel room after you had a meltdown and maxed out your father's credit cards with a male escort. A fact I had my team verify before I ever proposed to Jocelyn."

Sabrina's face went from pale to ashen. She looked like she was going to be sick.

Then, Andrew turned his glacial stare on Matthew.

"And as for you, Mr. Scott," he said, the words cutting like shards of glass. "Your 'genius' real estate predictions, the ones that have made you the talk of the town? They're about to meet a market correction you clearly didn't see coming. A correction my firm has been anticipating for months."

He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in.

"Consider any potential partnerships with my firm, or any firm that values its reputation, permanently terminated. You built your little empire on a house of cards. I suggest you get your affairs in order."

The silence in the ballroom was absolute. Then, the whispers started. The same people who had been looking at me with pity and scorn now turned their gazes on Matthew and Sabrina. Their expressions had shifted to disgust and derision.

The reporter who had been interviewing them moments before now looked at them like they were something he'd scraped off his shoe.

Matthew and Sabrina were no longer the golden couple. In the space of thirty seconds, Andrew had turned them into social pariahs. They were finished.

Later that night, after the gala had ended and the crowds had dispersed, Matthew cornered me outside the hotel. He looked broken, his expensive suit rumpled, his face pale with shock.

"Jocelyn... how?" he pleaded. "How did you know? The market... Andrew Lester... I don't understand."

His eyes were wide, desperate. And in them, I saw a flicker of something else. A dawning horror.

"You remember, don't you?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "The other life."