Chapter 4: the point

Except I could still smell her perfume. Still see the way his hands had been tangled in her hair. Still hear the sounds they'd been making.

My stomach lurched. I stopped walking, bent over, hands on my knees.

"Violet?" Harper's hand was on my back. "Hey, you okay?"

"No." I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to breathe through the nausea. "I'm not okay. I'm never going to be okay again."

"Yes, you will." Her voice was firm. "I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you will. I promise."

"How?" I straightened up, rain streaming down my face, mixing with tears I didn't remember starting to cry. "How am I supposed to be okay after this? He was my husband, Harper. I trusted him with everything. I built my entire life around him. And she... Layla was my sister. How do I come back from that?"

Harper grabbed my shoulders, making me look at her. Her mascara had run, making dark tracks down her cheeks. She looked fierce and a little bit crazy and absolutely certain.

"You come back from it by refusing to let them win," she said. "You come back from it by being better, stronger, more successful than they ever dreamed you could be. You come back from it by showing them exactly what they lost."

"I don't know if I can."

"You can." She shook me slightly. "You're Violet Carter. You just got promoted to Senior Marketing Director. You're brilliant and beautiful and you've spent five years carrying that man's dead weight while he took credit for your emotional labor. You can do this. You just have to decide to."

I wanted to believe her. God, I wanted to so badly. But all I could feel was this gaping hole where my life used to be.

"I loved him," I whispered.

"I know."

"I really loved him, Harper. It wasn't perfect but I thought... I thought we were happy."

"He didn't deserve your love." Her hands moved to cup my face, thumbs wiping away rain and tears. "And he definitely doesn't deserve your grief. So don't give it to him. Give him your rage instead. Give him your fury. Show him what happens when he underestimates you."

Something in her words sparked something in me. Small. Fragile. But there.

Rage.

Yes. I could work with rage.

My phone buzzed. Again. It had been going off constantly since we left the apartment. I pulled it out, water droplets scattering across the screen.

Twenty-three missed calls from Ethan. Fifteen from Layla. Eight from Victoria.

And one from a number I didn't recognize.

"Who's that?" Harper leaned in to look.

I opened the voicemail, put it on speaker. A woman's voice, professional and clipped.

"Ms. Carter, this is Jennifer Walsh from Page Six. I'm calling regarding allegations that have surfaced tonight about your husband, Ethan Carter, and your sister. I'd love to get your comment for a story we're running tomorrow. Please call me back at..."

I hung up.

Harper and I stared at each other.

"How do they already know?" My voice came out flat. Shocked.

"Someone talked." Harper's jaw was tight. "Someone told the press."

"Ethan wouldn't. He'd want to keep this quiet. His company's reputation..."

"Not Ethan." Harper grabbed my phone, scrolling through the messages. "Look. Victoria called you eight times. Want to bet she's the one who leaked it?"

I felt cold. Colder than the rain could make me. "Why would she do that?"

"Control the narrative." Harper was pacing now, phone in hand. "Get ahead of the story. Make Layla look like the victim before you can make her look like the villain."

My phone buzzed again. Another unknown number. Then another. The messages were coming faster now.

"We need to turn this off," Harper said, but I was already reading them.

Anonymous T*****r tags. Screenshots. Someone had seen us leave the building with my suitcase. Someone else had photographed Ethan and Layla going back inside. The stories were already spreading.

Billionaire's wife flees home after affair exposed.

Marketing executive Violet Carter's marriage in shambles.

Sources say Layla Brooks claims she was seduced by sister's husband.

That last one made me see red.

"She didn't." I couldn't breathe. "She did not just... Harper, she's telling people he seduced her?"

Harper grabbed the phone, read it, and her expression turned murderous. "That manipulative little..."

"I have photo evidence!" I was shaking again, but not from cold. From pure, crystalline fury. "I have proof of what they were doing. How dare she... how dare they..."

"Good." Harper's smile was sharp. "Let her lie. Let them all lie. Because when the truth comes out, and it will come out, they're going to look even worse."

"I want to call her." My fingers were already moving toward Victoria's number. "I want to ask her how she could do this to me."

"No." Harper snatched the phone away. "No. You don't call anyone. Not tonight. Not when you're emotional and they can twist your words."

"She was married to my father!" The words exploded out of me. "She's been in my life for seventeen years. And she's doing this? She's helping Layla destroy me?"

"She never liked you." Harper's voice was gentle now. "I know you don't want to hear it, but Victoria has always resented you. You were her husband's favorite. You got his attention, his love, his company shares when he died. Layla lived in your shadow her whole life, and Victoria watched it happen. This is payback."

The words hit like physical blows. Because I knew, deep down, that Harper was right. I'd felt it over the years. The small slights. The backhanded compliments. The way Victoria would light up when Layla succeeded at anything, but barely acknowledged my achievements.

I'd just been too busy trying to be a good daughter to see it for what it was.

Resentment. Jealousy. Hate.

"My dad would be so disappointed," I said quietly.

"Your dad would be proud of you." Harper pulled me back into motion, steering me down the street. "And he'd be ashamed of them. Come on. We're almost there."

She was right. Her building was just ahead, the doorman visible through the glass doors. Safety. Shelter. A place where I could finally stop pretending to be strong.

We stumbled into the lobby, dripping water everywhere. The doorman, Marcus, took one look at us and didn't ask questions. Just handed Harper some towels and called the elevator.

"Rough night, Ms. Lane?"

"Something like that." Harper wrapped a towel around my shoulders. "Thanks, Marcus."

The elevator ride up to her apartment felt eternal. I watched the numbers climb. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. With each floor, I felt pieces of myself cracking, breaking, falling away.

By the time we reached Harper's floor, I was barely holding it together.

She unlocked her apartment, pulled me inside, and locked the door behind us. The moment I heard that lock click, something in me gave way completely.

I collapsed.

Not gracefully. Not cinematically. Just... collapsed. My legs stopped working and I went down hard, suitcase clattering beside me, and the sound that came out of me was animal. Raw. Broken.

"I've got you." Harper was on the floor with me, arms around me, holding me while I shattered. "Let it out. Just let it out."

And I did. I cried like I'd never cried before. Ugly, heaving sobs that felt like they were being ripped from somewhere deep inside. I cried for my marriage. For the future I'd planned. For the man I thought I knew. For the sister I thought I had.

I cried until I couldn't breathe, until my throat was raw, until there was nothing left inside me but emptiness.

Harper held me through all of it. Didn't try to make it better. Didn't tell me to calm down. Just held me and let me break.

When I finally went quiet, exhausted and numb, she helped me up. Guided me to her couch. Wrapped me in blankets that smelled like lavender and safety.

"Wine?" she asked.

I nodded.

She disappeared into the kitchen. I heard cabinet doors opening, the clink of glasses. Came back with two huge glasses of red wine and a pint of ice cream.

"Chardonnay's for celebration," she said, settling beside me. "Tonight calls for the good Cabernet."

I took the glass, drank half of it in one go. The wine was warm going down, dulling the sharp edges of everything.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Harper asked gently.

"No." I drank more wine. "Yes. I don't know."

"Then let's start with the facts." She pulled out a notebook. Actually pulled out a notebook like she was planning a business meeting. "What do we know for sure?"

"Harper, what are you..."

"We're building a case." She clicked her pen, all business now. "You're going to divorce him, obviously. And we're going to make sure you get everything you deserve. But to do that, we need evidence. Documentation. A timeline."

I stared at her. "You're serious."

"Deadly serious." She met my eyes. "Ethan underestimated you. They all did. They think you're going to curl up and cry and make this easy for them. But you're not. You're going to fight. And I'm going to help you."

"I don't even know where to start."

"We start with what happened tonight." She had her pen poised. "You came home early. What time?"

"Seven thirty. Maybe seven forty-five."

"And they were..."