Chapter 3

On my first day after quitting, Layla missed two brand meetings.

On the second day she got two sponsors' names the wrong way round.

On the third day she sent a voice message from the work account. "Even if Seraphina wakes up, she has no value left. Is Adrian supposed to spend his whole life looking after an invalid?"

In the past, an error like that would never have stayed online for more than ten seconds. I would have withdrawn it, contacted the platform, and written an apology for her.

Now there was nobody to handle it.

The message was forwarded tens of thousands of times.

Layla didn't apologize. Instead, she berated me in the team chat, claiming that quitting didn't excuse me from staying on call. She had forgotten the group had already been made public, so that message spread with the rest.

A brand manager called and demanded she put out a clarification within half an hour.

Out of habit, Layla held her phone toward the chair where I used to sit. Her hand was halfway there before she remembered no one was in it.

She wrote three lines herself. The first said the voice message had been fabricated. The second called it a joke among friends. The third admitted that she really was worried Adrian was wearing himself out caring for his sick wife.

The brand manager read it and suspended the partnership outright.

Layla never noticed that the three explanations contradicted one another. She decided the brand was only trying to lowball her before she married into the Blackwoods.

To salvage her image, she announced she would go live to pray for Seraphina.

Working from old photographs of Seraphina, she bought the same silver dress and the same perfume, and even did her hair the same way. The only difference was the stolen moonstone necklace on her chest.

Before the stream began, I sent her another warning.

Don't imitate his wife. It will only make him more wary of you.

Layla made the screenshot public with the caption: Some people simply can't stand that I'd make a better Luna.

During the stream, she first said a dying Seraphina had given her the necklace. Five minutes later, she claimed she had found it by the roadside. When a reporter pressed her on why she hadn't returned it, she lifted her chin.

"Adrian has tacitly allowed me to keep it."

Someone asked why, if this was a prayer, she was dressed as though for an engagement party.

Layla threw the questioner out of the stream on the spot.

"A woman making herself beautiful is also a way of respecting a patient. If Seraphina were awake she would only thank me for taking care of her husband."

For once, Tessa didn't echo her from behind the camera. She stared at the necklace on Layla's chest and asked quietly, "Are you sure she won't wake up?"

Layla switched off the microphone, impatient.

"Awake or not, it's the same. How is someone who needs help walking going to compete with me?"

She didn't notice that although the stream was muted, Tessa's own camera was still recording sound.

That evening Blackwood Security sent a formal invitation.

They would thank those who took part in the rescue at a private dinner, and at the same time verify the clothing from that night, the original footage and the moonstone necklace.

All Layla saw were the words "attend in person."

"He finally couldn't stay away."

She had a tailor send over a low-cut silver dress and booked the most expensive hotel near the estate.

"After tonight I may not be coming back to the Vale house."

Tessa looked at the evidence list in the attachment.

"This looks more like an investigation."

Layla gave her an unhappy look.

"Have you been infected by Rowan too? If Adrian suspected me, wouldn't he send the police to arrest me instead of inviting me to dinner?"

When I got the same invitation, all I said was, "Asking you to bring the original footage and the necklace isn't a date."

Layla sent me a four-minute voice message.

She went from how she had set up her shots to how she made Tessa wait for the live light, and then boasted that the moonstone necklace looked better on her than it ever had on Seraphina.

Finally, she ordered me to write a declaration of love overnight, centered on the line "I'll go on loving you in her place."

I saved the message and didn't reply.

She waited ten minutes, then sent me the demand letter the Vales' lawyer had drafted. If I failed to deliver the piece, they threatened to collect every cent they had spent on me since taking me from the orphanage.

In my last life a bill like that would have had me apologizing immediately.

This time, I forwarded the bill and my pay records to an employment attorney. He read two pages and asked whether the Vales had ever paid me overtime.

I said they hadn't.

The demand letter Layla had meant to use against me became written proof of the Vales' years of coercion.

Before dinner, Tessa again asked for the brand partnership Layla had promised her.

Layla told her outright, "If dinner goes well, keep filming for me. If the investigation becomes a problem, I'll say you acted alone in both the maddened-wolf incident and the training-hall attack. Rowan doesn't have the complete original footage anyway."

Tessa asked, "What about your voice messages?"

Layla replied with a smiling emoji. "Who's going to believe a photographer who'll do anything for money?"

Tessa forwarded the conversation to me.

When we reached the Blackwood estate, the press Layla had called were already waiting outside.

She pulled a suitcase monogrammed with an A and an L and explained that the L stood for Layla, not Luna. She planned to have reporters photograph her leaving the estate the next morning, proving that she had spent the night.

The estate's security made the press withdraw to the road and refused to carry her luggage.

Layla wrote down the guard's name on the spot and declared that once she became the lady of the estate, firing him would be her first act.

The guard didn't argue. He simply filed that sentence along with the gate camera footage.

I went in through the witnesses' side entrance.

Layla saw the invitation in my hand and her face darkened.

"You think you belong here?"

"My name is on the invitation."

"Adrian only wants you to watch me win with your own eyes."

She held out her coat to me. I didn't take it.

Layla threatened quietly, "After tonight I'll make sure you can't find work anywhere in Blackpine."

The doors of the reception room opened.

Adrian stood at the far end of the long table. There was no greeting or small talk. His gaze went straight to the necklace around Layla's throat.

"Who gave you permission to touch my wife's things?"