Chapter 2

The next day, someone uploaded the video online. The faces were blurred, but it wasn't hard to tell the woman in it was me.

The comments exploded.

"I heard she's supposed to be a perfumer. Guess she went from blending scents to blending into some guy's bed."

"Mother and daughter, same playbook. One mixes perfume, and the other mixes with rich men."

"She's barely grown and already playing someone's dirty little secret."

They didn't just come for me. They came for my mother too. I fired back at a few of them, but all it earned me was more hatred pouring in.

I hadn't even put my phone down when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find a man in his late 50s standing outside with two others behind him, backs straight and silent.

"Ms. Sherwood, he'd like to see you."

I knew exactly who the guy meant. He was referring to my father, a man I could count on one hand the number of times I'd met.

I changed into something clean.

Soon, the car stopped outside a mansion halfway up the hill. I followed the housekeeper inside, where the air was heavy with cologne.

Victor Caldwell sat at the head of the table, and when he saw me come in, he slid his phone across to my side.

"Is this you in the video?"

"Yes."

The word barely left my mouth before he slammed his palm on the table.

"And you have the nerve to admit it! Your mother's little scandal kept this whole circle laughing for years, and now look at you. You've managed to outdo her."

I rapped my knuckles against the table. "You don't get to talk about my mother. She never wanted anything to do with you.

"You were the one who wouldn't leave her alone, who threatened the people she cared about, and who kept her trapped. That's the only reason she ended up branded as a mistress!"

He hadn't expected me to push back. He jabbed a finger at me. "If you'd had any sense of decency, none of this would've ended up online."

Victor grabbed a check from the table and flung it in front of me. "Here's 200,000 dollars. That'll keep you going for a while. Go wherever you want. Just never tell anyone you're a Caldwell."

I scoffed and flicked the check back at him. "I was never a Caldwell. My last name is Sherwood."

Just then, the housekeeper came in to announce a guest. Victor waved me off.

I headed for the door but barely made it a few steps before I collided with someone coming the other way. I looked up and found myself face to face with Silas.

He wore a polished smile, though underneath it I caught something cold. "Mr. Caldwell, I came to apologize."

Watching the two of them exchange pleasantries, I felt a chill run through me. They knew each other?

I knew Silas' family had money, but I never imagined they moved in the same circles. No wonder they shared the same hobbies.

A wave of nausea hit me.

"It was careless of me, and Willa got caught in the crossfire. I give you my word nothing like this will happen again. I'll have everything online scrubbed clean."

I stood there, frozen, and watched two men settle my entire life in the span of a few minutes.

Even when Silas pulled me away, my head was still spinning. He pushed me into the car, and it sped away from the mansion.

"What's the matter, babe? Still upset?"

He leaned in close, deliberately closing the distance between us, his voice low and teasing against my ear.

I flinched away from his touch and pressed myself against the far door. "Silas, I'm not a mistress. I'm not the other woman.

"I've been with you for five years. Natalie's been with you for three. You can't just—"

My voice cracked before I could finish.

How could he slap a label on me with one careless sentence and leave me to be torn apart by strangers?

Just one day earlier, he was still the Silas who loved me. The one who drove halfway across the city at 2:00 am because I said I was a little hungry and showed up at my door with a container of hot soup.

But overnight, everything changed, and I couldn't make sense of any of it.

Then, I heard him say, "So what? Who's going to believe the word of a mistress's daughter?

"Play along and stay where I put you, and I'll give you everything you could ever want… except my last name."