Chapter 3

The next day, Hudson acted as if nothing had happened. This was his pattern. Cruelty, then cloying affection.

"I have a surprise for you," he said over breakfast, smiling as if he hadn't tried to boil me alive twelve hours earlier.

He took me shopping. Not to a store, but to an entire luxury wing of a department store he' d rented out for the afternoon.

"Whatever you want, Aleen. It's yours."

I walked through the empty aisles, a ghost in a museum of excess. I paused for a second too long in front of a diamond bracelet. Before I could move on, he had bought it.

"You just have to be a good girl, Aleen," he said, clasping it around my wrist. The diamonds felt like shackles. "Stay obedient, and I will give you the world."

I wanted to scream that I didn't want his world. I wanted to run, to disappear, but I knew what would happen. I remembered the gasoline and my mother's terrified face. So I stayed silent.

As we were leaving, I saw a crowd gathered in the main plaza of the mall. Flashes were going off. People were shouting.

My heart seized. I knew, somehow, this involved me.

I pushed through the throng of people and saw her.

Ginger.

She was on the ground, her designer dress torn, revealing her bra and underwear. Her face was bruised, her hair a mess. She looked utterly ravaged, a victim.

Hudson' s face turned to stone. He shoved people aside, rushing to her.

"What happened?" he demanded of the crowd.

Whispers erupted. "It was his wife! The jealous one!"

"I saw her hire those men to do it!" another voice chimed in. "She's always hated Ginger Nash."

"Such a vicious woman, hiding behind that innocent face."

The words hit me like physical blows. I stood frozen, the blood draining from my face. I hadn't done anything. I was with Hudson the entire time. How could they possibly think...

Hudson ripped off his jacket, covering Ginger' s exposed body. He cradled her in his arms, his expression a mixture of fury and concern.

"It's okay," he murmured to her, his voice gentle in a way it never was with me anymore. "I'm here. I'll make them pay."

She sobbed into his chest. "Aleen... she warned me... I didn't think she would actually do it..."

Hudson lifted his head and his eyes found mine through the crowd. They were not questioning. They were full of cold, hard accusation.

He didn't need proof. He didn't need a single fact. In his mind, I was already guilty.

He carried Ginger away, barking orders at his security to disperse the crowd and deal with the "paparazzi."

He left me there, alone, in a sea of judging eyes and pointing fingers.

I stood there, the diamond bracelet on my wrist feeling heavier than a ball and chain. He hadn't even asked. He hadn't even looked for me. He had just left me to the wolves.

The next morning, it was everywhere.

My face was plastered across every gossip site, every tabloid. "Billionaire's Jilted Wife Takes Brutal Revenge on Rival."

But that wasn't the worst of it.

The articles were filled with pictures. Not just of yesterday's incident, but other photos. Intimate photos. Pictures of me in lingerie, pictures of me in bed. Photos Hudson had taken, moments I had thought were private, shared between a husband and wife.

The headlines screamed. "Waitress with a Scheming Past: See the Photos Aleen Anthony Used to Trap a Billionaire!"

The story they spun was that I was a promiscuous, manipulative gold-digger. That I had a history of seducing men. The photos were the "proof."

I felt the world tilt on its axis.