Chapter 3

Night had fallen thick and heavy, like ink that refused to fade. A white Maserati glided silently into Celestia Bay Villas and stopped in front of a brightly lit villa.

Leanne turned off the engine but didn't get out right away.

She leaned back in her seat, quietly staring at that warm pool of light. That was her and Parker's marital home. Every bit of decor and every piece of furniture had once held all her hopes for the future. Now, that light felt like a poisoned needle, stabbing her eyes until they burned.

On her phone screen, the live feed from the hidden camera disguised as an essential oil diffuser was still frozen on the image from ten minutes ago.

In the living room, Parker was handing a glass of red wine to Charlotte, who sat on the couch. The tenderness and affection in his eyes were something Leanne had never seen directed at her. Charlotte smiled daintily, her body soft and pliant as she leaned into his arms.

They sat on Leanne's custom-made leather couch, specially ordered from Udaly. On top of that, Charlotte was wearing Leanne's silk robe.

"Babe, once Leanne has the baby, we can just…"

Leanne hadn't listened to the rest. She locked her phone. The screen went dark, reflecting a face completely drained of color.

For the past three days, she'd stayed at a downtown hotel under the guise of a business trip. From there, she'd watched Parker and Charlotte like they were acting out some absurd stage play. She'd gone from the first wave of bone-deep chill to the feeling of having her heart ripped apart before landing on the numbness she felt now.

She pressed her thumb to the sensor on the smart lock. The front door unlocked with a soft click, and the motion light in the entryway came on with a gentle glow.

From the living room came a woman's muffled, flirtatious laughter. Leanne paused as she changed out of her shoes. Then, the corner of her mouth lifted in a cold arc. In soft indoor slippers, she moved toward the living room, as quiet and graceful as a lethal cat on the hunt.

Parker had his arm around Charlotte as they snuggled on the expensive couch, tangled together in an indecently intimate pose. Charlotte held an apple Parker had just peeled for her and was about to take a bite.

"What are you two doing?" Leanne's cool voice carried no emotion, yet it pierced their ears like an ice pick.

The two of them jerked like cats whose tails had been stepped on, their bodies going rigid as they shot to their feet.

Parker was the first to recover. He quickly straightened his shirt collar and forced out a smile as he walked toward her. "Leanne? Didn't you say you were coming back tomorrow? Why are you home early?"

As he spoke, he shifted his body, casually trying to stop Leanne's gaze from landing on Charlotte, hoping to hide that eye-catching robe.

"Things got settled ahead of schedule, so I changed my flight." Leanne's gaze slid past his shoulder and landed on Charlotte, who stood awkwardly while wringing her hands. A hint of perfectly measured confusion flickered in her eyes.

The loving smile on Parker's face froze instantly. When he turned and saw Leanne, a flash of unmistakable panic crossed his eyes. "L-Leanne? I thought you were away on a business trip. W-Why are you back already? You should've texted me so I could go pick you up."

Charlotte's face had turned ashen with shock. The apple slid from her fingers and hit the expensive carpet with a soft thud, rolling a few times before coming to rest at Leanne's feet.

Charlotte instinctively tugged at the front of the slightly messy robe, her face bloodless as she stammered, "Leanne, y-you're back! I… I just came over to hang out with you. I wanted to surprise you, but Parker said you were on a business trip. I, uh, I was just about to leave."

Her voice was sickly sweet, with just the right hint of hurt and innocence, like she really was just a poor little thing who'd dropped by to see her friend and ended up blindsided.

In the past, Leanne might have believed her. Now, watching this carefully staged performance, all she felt was a violent churning in her gut.

Charlotte had "come over to hang out", huh? What was the plan? A stripping game where they each took turns taking a single piece of clothing off?

Leanne didn't spare a single glance for the flustered Parker. Her gaze landed squarely on Charlotte's face instead. Her expression was calm, but her eyes were like X-rays, stripping away every layer of Charlotte's facade.

She didn't explode. She even let the corners of her lips curve up, though the smile never reached her eyes. "Oh? You came to hang out with me?"

She repeated the words softly, then strolled over at an unhurried pace. Before that, she bent down and picked up the fallen apple off the carpet. Then, with effortless grace, she tossed it straight into the nearby trash can.

Only after that did she lift her eyes to meet Charlotte's directly. Her voice was light as a feather, but the weight behind it could crush bone. "Do we even know each other that well, Ms. Palmer?"

The question landed like an invisible slap across Charlotte's face. All the color drained from her cheeks in an instant, and the sweet smile she'd been struggling to hold froze, twisting into something painfully ugly.

Because the truth was that they were barely more than acquaintances. At best, thanks to Parker, they'd bumped into each other a few times at social gatherings and exchanged a handful of polite pleasantries. Privately, they didn't even have each other's numbers.

Her pretext of being there to hang out with Leanne was nothing but a flimsy, laughable lie.

Leanne's innocent question stripped away Charlotte's feeble excuse like tearing off a mask, leaving her naked in the thick, suffocating awkwardness of the moment.

Charlotte's eyes reddened almost instantly, like she might burst into tears at any second. She shot a helpless, pleading look at Parker, silently begging him to step in.

Parker's heart twisted at the sight. Frowning, he hurried forward and shifted his body so he was half-shielding Charlotte from Leanne's line of sight.

His tone was edged with reproach as he chided, "Leanne, how could you say that? Charlotte meant well. She's simple-hearted and only wants to get closer to you."

He reached for Leanne's hand, trying to use the affectionate gesture to smooth things over. "You and Lottie probably just have some misunderstandings. I was thinking that since you'll be seeing each other a lot in the future, I should help you two get along."

"T-That's right, Leanne." Charlotte quickly seized the lifeline. She nodded hastily, her expression slipping back into that pitiful, soft-eyed look. "Parker's only thinking of us. After all, now that you two are married, we're basically family. We'll run into each other all the time, so it'd be bad if things stayed tense between us."

When she mentioned that they would run into each other all the time, there was the faintest hint of deliberate emphasis in her tone—something only the three of them could catch.

It was a declaration of territory. She was telling Leanne that it didn't matter if Leanne had "married" Parker. She would always be a presence in their life that Leanne couldn't get rid of.

Family, huh? Leanne sneered inwardly.

What a joke of a family. One was the wife in name, and the other was the actual, lawfully wedded wife hiding in the shadows. Anyone would laugh if they heard about this.

Outwardly, though, her expression showed only a timely, appropriate confusion. She tilted her head ever so slightly, fixing her gaze on Parker, her eyes wide and guileless.

"We'll run into each other all the time?" she echoed, her voice light and crisp. Every word landed like a tap of a hammer on their nerves.

"Why?" she asked with pure, almost childlike, curiosity. "You're my husband, and I'm the only daughter of the Knight family, while she's from the Palmer family. Our families are the only ones joined in matrimony, and you're the Knight family's son-in-law. She's just an outsider, isn't she? Why would we be 'running into each other all the time'?"

Leanne's gaze drifted from Parker's frozen face to Charlotte's chalk-white one. Her tone was still perfectly innocent, as if she really was just asking them to help her understand something simple.

"Parker, why don't you explain this to me? I'm not quite following."