Chapter 5

On Wednesday afternoon, I went to a private jewelry exhibition in Kensington, London.

I was in a dressing room backstage, trying on jewelry for the evening, when Claire walked right in without even knocking.

"Evelyn..."

Once inside, she waved the attendants out and shut the door behind them.

I didn't even look up. I just kept polishing the gem in my hand with a scrap of silk.

"This is a private dressing room. Don't you have any basic manners, Ms. Bennett?"

Claire didn't answer.

She waited until every attendant was gone. Then she came over to the sofa and, of all things, sank to the floor in front of me.

"Evelyn, if it bothers you that Adrian and I have gotten too close, then I'll just stop seeing him. I'm begging you, stop tormenting Father and Adrian."

Watching her put on this whole performance just made me sick.

In my last life, I'd fallen for this act for ten whole years: the tears at the drop of a hat, the sweet, harmless-little-lamb routine.

"There's no one else here. Who's the show for?"

I put the gem aside and looked down at her.

"Do you cry like this when you're sleeping with my fiancé too?"

Claire's face froze.

A few seconds later, the wounded look vanished. She got to her feet with a sneer.

"You think Adrian loves you? Every time he holds me, he says you're an ice queen, so prim and proper it's suffocating."

I didn't lose my temper. I just slipped my hand into my pocket, as casually as I could, and hit record on my phone.

Claire didn't notice. She was too busy gloating.

"The people Father really loves are my mother and me. So what if you work yourself to death running the Ashbourne businesses? Father promised me a long time ago that once you're married, he'll put everything that's left in my name."

She stared at me, her eyes burning with spite.

"You're nothing but a tool we're using to get our hands on the Devaux family's resources."

"So you've been planning all along to help yourselves to the private fortune my mother left me, too?"

I kept my voice even, nudging her to keep talking.

"So what?" Claire's voice turned shrill. "You owe me! I spent 20 years with people whispering behind my back. What's so wrong with taking a little of your inheritance?"

The words were barely out of her mouth when she noticed the red light glowing in my pocket. Her face changed.

"You're recording this?"

She lunged at me, grabbing for my phone.

"Give me that!"

"Get off me!"

I caught her wrist and shoved her away hard, then slapped her across the face.

Smack!

The crack of the slap rang through the dressing room.

Claire fell to the floor beside the vanity, and blood soon beaded on her lip.

"Evelyn! What are you doing?!"

The dressing room door burst open.

My father rushed in. The second he saw Claire on the floor, he stepped in front of her and shielded her with his body.

"How dare you hit your sister?"

I looked at the two of them coldly.

"My mother had only one daughter. This illegitimate girl doesn't get to call herself my sister."

"Apologize to her right now!" my father roared. "Or I'll cut you out of the inheritance!"

"Cut me out of the inheritance?"

I laughed.

Then I walked up to him, one slow step at a time, and looked him straight in the eye.

"Everything the Ashbourne family owns that's actually worth anything is in the trust my mother left. And you don't have the right to touch it anymore."

I lifted my chin.

"You want to disinherit me? Go ahead and try. Let's see which of us ends up with nothing first."