Chapter FIVE

The morning light filtered through the heavy curtains of the Rourke mansion like a reluctant witness, casting long shadows across the marble floors that seemed to echo with the ghosts of last night's revelations. Angela stirred in the master bedroom, her head aching from crying. Yesterday's gold dress lay draped over the velvet armchair like a discarded costume, its shimmer now seeming tarnished in the harsh daylight.

She reached for her phone on the nightstand. Clara's messages from the night before still glowed on her phone screen, each worried text a lifeline thrown across the ocean of her isolation.

‘Called you six times. Answer me.’

‘Don't do anything stupid.’

‘Remember what we talked about.

Angela's fingers hovered over the keyboard, a dozen responses dying unspoken. What could she say? That Daniel had handed her proof of his betrayal like a birthday present? She sat there smiling while he explained how another woman would give him the children she couldn't. That she'd actually