Done Being a Pushover Mr CEO, Your Wife Is the Richest Woman의 모든 챕터: 챕터 1 - 챕터 10

The slap cracked through the living room like a gunshot.Seraphina's head snapped to the side. Her cheek burned, and for a moment the only sound was the ticking of the antique clock above the fireplace."You clumsy, worthless girl," Margaret Cole hissed, her hand still raised. "That vase belonged to my grandmother!"Seraphina touched her face. Her fingers came away warm. Margaret's ring had split the skin."I didn't touch it," she said quietly."Liar!" Vanessa's voice trembled with perfect, practiced tears. She stood beside the shattered porcelain in a cream silk dress, one hand pressed to her chest. "I saw her, Auntie Margaret. She was angry that Adrian asked me to organize the dinner. She knocked it over on purpose."Seraphina looked past them to the doorway. Adrian stood there with his jacket over his arm, home early for once. His eyes moved across the broken vase, his mother's fury, Vanessa's tears. They barely touched his wife's bleeding cheek."Adrian," Seraphina said. "Tell the

Adrian did not come home that night.Seraphina lay awake in the guest room off the kitchen, where Margaret had moved her "to be closer to the staff," and listened to the house breathe. At dawn she rose, washed the wine from her hair, scrubbed her ruined dress in the sink, and went to the kitchen. The maids did not meet her eyes."Madam," whispered Mrs. Holloway, pressing a warm cup of tea into her hands. "Eat something, please. You look so thin.""Thank you."The old housekeeper glanced toward the hall and lowered her voice. "Mrs. Cole has called everyone to the front hall. All the staff. I don't like it."Seraphina's stomach tightened. She followed the maids out.Margaret stood at the foot of the grand staircase in a pearl-grey suit. At her feet sat a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush. Twelve members of staff lined the walls like witnesses at a trial."Last night," Margaret announced, "my daughter-in-law shamed this family in front of a thousand guests. Today she will learn

On the night of her birthday, Seraphina set the table herself.She cooked all afternoon with Mrs.Holloway help: a simple roast, and the only cake she could afford, vanilla with a single candle. She lit the candles at six. She wore the navy dress, mended and pressed, because it was the only one she owned. She left a note on Adrian's pillow: Please come home tonight. I'm asking for one dinner.Six o'clock became seven. Seven became nine. By eleven the candles had burned to puddles of wax and the roast sat cold under its silver lid. Mrs. Okafor stopped by twice with a gentle, aching look and said nothing.At midnight, the front door opened.Adrian came in laughing. Vanessa hung on his arm, tipsy and flushed, her hair loose around her shoulders. She wore a pale gold dress, and around her throat hung a delicate silver locket.Seraphina's breath caught.It was her mother's. The only thing she had brought from her old life. She had kept it hidden in a drawer for three years."Oh!" Vanessa cl

The video had four million views by morning, and Adrian was furious.Not at himself. At the camera."Four million," he said, pacing the study with his phone in his fist. "Do you understand what that does to our share price? To the Marlowe deal?"Seraphina stood in the middle of the carpet in her grey maid's uniform, the mark on her cheek now a deep, ugly purple. No one had offered her a chair. Margaret sat by the window. Vanessa lounged on the leather sofa, one leg crossed over the other. A thin man in a navy suit hovered near the desk with a tablet. Adrian's head of public relations, Mr. Pruitt."Mrs. Cole," Pruitt began carefully, "we've prepared a short statement."He handed her a single page. She read it once.I tripped at the luncheon and caused an accident. My husband reacted in the heat of the moment, out of concern for his guest. The video is misleading. I am safe, happy, and deeply loved.She raised her eyes. "You want me to say I'm deeply loved?""I want you to say whatever

The door swung open without a knock.Margaret stood in the doorway in a black silk robe, her silver hair pinned for sleep, her eyes glittering in the dark like a cat's. She did not look like a woman who had been woken. She looked like a woman who had been waiting."Who were you talking to?"Seraphina's heart slammed against her ribs. The black phone lay flat beneath the mattress, six inches from her knee. "No one, Mother. I was praying.""Don't lie to me." Margaret stepped inside and closed the door softly behind her. That was worse than if she had slammed it. "I heard a phone buzz in this room. And I heard you.""Heard me say what?"Margaret's lips barely moved. "Whose child are you carrying, Vanessa?"The room went cold.She had said it aloud. In the quiet, in the dark, with the weight of the message pressing on her chest, the question had slipped out of her in a whisper, and the old woman on the other side of the door had caught every syllable."I don't know what you mean."The sla