Chapter 5 THE MAKING OF EVA LARK

Vivienne adopted the name Eva Lark the next day.

She forged a fake background-an East Coast accent, a fabricated investor history, a polished but vague résumé. Sebastian introduced her to a tight-lipped team of ghost specialists: a forger, a PR strategist, and an ex-spy-turned-cybersecurity expert named Morgan.

They trained her like a weapon.

She learned how to walk, speak, and move like a mystery. To own a room without revealing anything. To command attention without earning suspicion. Her posture changed. Her voice deepened. Her fashion shifted into structured neutrals, clean lines, commanding shoes.

Vivienne Hartley had shimmered like diamonds.

Eva Lark sliced like glass.

But transformation wasn't just appearance.

It was pain.

Every day she fought the urge to scroll through social media. To check if Julian had commented on the headlines. To read the venom pouring through online forums.

Her name was still being dragged. Her pain was public property.

The world had built an altar around Julian and Genevieve's new romance.

But Vivienne? She had become a cautionary tale for rich housewives. "Don't be like her." "She should've kept quiet." "How embarrassing to be caught."

Caught for what?

Something she never did.

The lowest moment came two weeks later.

A news alert popped up while she was eating alone at a diner, dressed down in a coat too large for her shoulders.

"Julian Cross to Launch New Foundation with Fiancée Genevieve Scott."

The photo below was of them holding hands outside an orphanage.

Vivienne dropped her coffee.

Genevieve, the woman who'd replaced her, was now posing as a philanthropist. Using her stolen spotlight. Wearing the same designer she once gifted Julian for his birthday.

The headline used the phrase: "A couple built on integrity and shared values."

She nearly screamed.

Instead, she walked out.

That night, she stood at the bathroom mirror, staring at the reflection that no longer looked like a broken woman.

She looked like a ghost reborn.

"Let them think I'm dead," she whispered. "They have no idea who they buried."

Two days later, she met with Sebastian.

He slid a portfolio across the table-a blueprint for her new company.

Name: Lark & Vale

Luxury Reimagined. Exclusivity Redefined.

It was perfect.

Under Eva Lark's leadership, they'd begin with boutique rebranding consultations: elite clients, high discretion. Nothing loud. Nothing flashy. Just elegant disruption.

A whisper of brilliance.

Not enough to be traced back to her yet-but enough to plant the first seed of empire.

She looked up at Sebastian.

"Let's begin."

He extended his hand. "Welcome to the war."

She didn't hesitate.

And just like that, the game began.

Vivienne was no longer the heartbroken ex-wife.

She was Eva Lark.

The woman who would rewrite the narrative.

And Julian Cross had no idea what was coming.

************

The loft was hidden in the heart of the city-no signage, no doorman, no cameras. Sebastian Ward called it "The Forge."

It looked nothing like a luxury training ground. The space was industrial and cold, with polished concrete floors and glass-walled conference rooms. But Vivienne-or rather, Eva-understood why. This wasn't about comfort. It was about becoming indestructible.

"You're not here to feel good," Sebastian had said. "You're here to unlearn weakness."

It sounded harsh.

But she didn't flinch.

Because the woman who had once waited for her husband to come home now walked into boardrooms with a mask of steel.

Her first week was brutal.

She was drilled in executive strategy and psychological profiling. Her PR strategist, a sharp-tongued woman named Corinne March, taught her how to wield silence as a weapon.

"Confidence isn't loud," Corinne said. "It's controlled. Women like Genevieve? They sparkle for applause. You? You disappear before the knife lands."

Vivienne practiced voice modulation, walked through mock interviews, even re-learned how to take a seat in a room full of power players. She studied posture, projection, language cues. Every movement had to speak command.

She was no longer Julian's wife.

She was no one's shadow.

Her cybersecurity mentor, Morgan-stoic, ex-intelligence-trained her in digital stealth.

They wiped all traces of her real identity from public databases. Birth records were reburied, credit reports rewritten, even her university history carefully "lost" under a flurry of old system breaches.

Her new identity, Eva Lark, was air-tight. Raised in Switzerland. Educated at LSE. Quiet investor in minor art galleries. A woman who appeared overnight but looked like she'd always belonged.

"You'll get pushback," Morgan warned. "Men will want proof. Women will want gossip. Give neither."

And yet, the hardest lessons weren't about disguise.

They were about letting go.

One evening, during media response training, Corinne showed her a tabloid cover:

"Julian's Angel: Genevieve's Devotion Through Divorce Scandal."

The article painted Vivienne as an unstable liability. It quoted anonymous sources. Accused her of paranoia, of mood swings, even hinted she might have cheated with their gardener.

Vivienne stared at it for a long time.

And then, calmly, she folded it and lit the page on fire in the provided ashtray.

Corinne blinked. "That's... not the worst way to process media."

Vivienne smiled. "That woman's gone."