Jocelyn
Julian’s words echo in my ears. ‘It is compromised territory.’
But I can’t leave it. Not that. I’m sitting in a multi-million dollar fortress in the sky, surrounded by anonymous, expensive furniture, and all I can think about is a shoebox on the top shelf of my closet.
Our closet.
It’s a foolish risk. I know it. But inside that box are the last frayed photos of my mother, a silver locket from my father, and a handful of letters my grandfather wrote me when I was in college. They are the only parts of me that existed before Zayn Maddox. I cannot let them become casualties of his war.
I call the car service Julian arranged, my voice firm, giving the address to the penthouse. I feel a prickle of guilt, like a child disobeying a parent, but it's overshadowed by a fierce, possessive need.
George, the doorman, looks surprised to see me back so soon, and even more surprised when I use the old service keycard instead of the resident one. “Just picking up a few last personal effects, George,” I say, offering a smile that doesn’t reach my eyes.
“Of course, Ms. Foster,” he says. He’s already stopped calling me Mrs. Maddox. News travels fast.
The penthouse is just as I left it. Silent. Cold. Zayn’s glass is still on the bar. My engagement ring is still on the envelope on the coffee table. A perfect little tableau of a life imploding.
I don’t linger. I walk straight to the master bedroom, my heels sinking into the plush carpet. The closet is a room in itself, Zayn’s dark suits on one side, my clothes on the other. It smells like him. Sandalwood and power.
I push the scent away, grab the small step ladder, and reach for the box. My fingers brush against the worn cardboard just as I hear a sound from the front of the apartment. A key sliding into the lock.
My blood runs cold. It can’t be Zayn. He would have called. His security would have announced him.
The door opens and closes. Heavy, expensive footsteps click on the marble floor of the foyer. A woman’s footsteps.
“Zayn, darling? I’m here! Did you get rid of the stray yet?” a voice calls out, dripping with a manufactured sweetness that sets my teeth on edge.
I freeze on the ladder, clutching the box to my chest. The footsteps are coming closer. Toward the bedroom.
A woman appears in the doorway. She is tall, willowy, with hair the color of champagne and eyes the color of ice. She’s dressed in a white Chanel suit that probably costs more than my first car. She looks around the room, a moue of distaste on her perfectly sculpted lips, before her eyes land on me.
Whitney.
She lets out a little sigh of exasperation, as if she’s found a cockroach in her kitchen. “Oh. You’re still here.”
I step down from the ladder, my movements stiff. My heart is hammering against my ribs, a frantic, trapped bird.
“I was just leaving,” I say, my voice tight.
“Clearly,” she says, her eyes raking over me, from my simple black dress to the cardboard box in my hands. “Picking through the scraps? I told Zayn he should have had the staff handle this. It’s so much cleaner that way. Less… emotional.”
She drifts into the room, running a dismissive hand over the silk comforter on the bed we shared. “He’s always been too soft with his charity cases.”
My grip on the box tightens. “I’m not a charity case.”
She laughs, a light, tinkling sound that is utterly devoid of warmth. “Aren’t you? A sweet, naive little thing he picked up and played house with. It was an amusing diversion, I’ll admit. But playtime is over. The adults are home now.”
She circles me like a shark, her perfume hitting me in waves. It’s heavy, cloying. Nothing like the light, clean scent I wear.
“This place is ghastly, by the way,” she says, waving a hand vaguely at the decor. “So terribly… you. All this beige and cream. It has no personality. I’ll have my designers gut it to the studs. We’ll start next week.”
Every word is a deliberate, poisoned dart. She wants a reaction. She wants to see me cry. I refuse to give her the satisfaction.
“Then you’ll have a lot of work to do,” I say, my voice level.
Her smile falters for a second. She wasn’t expecting calm. She was expecting hysterics.
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” she says, recovering quickly. “It’s not your concern anymore, is it? You can go back to… wherever it is you came from.”
She holds up her left hand, letting it catch the light from the window. On her ring finger sits a diamond the size of a small planet, a garish, square-cut monstrosity surrounded by a halo of smaller, equally ostentatious diamonds. It’s the kind of ring a man buys to prove a point, not to declare his love.
“Zaynie gave it to me this morning,” she says, her voice a purr of triumph. “To replace that silly little thing he gave me in Italy. He said this one was for a proper wife. Not a placeholder.”
Proper wife. Placeholder. The words detonate in the silent room. The last remnants of my grief, the soft, aching sadness, are incinerated in a blast of pure, white-hot rage.
My desire to run, to hide with my children and lick my wounds in secret, vanishes. It is replaced by something new. Something cold and sharp and dangerous.
“That’s a beautiful ring,” I say, my voice a perfect imitation of polite society. “I’m sure it cost a fortune.”
She beams, thinking she’s won. “It did. He said nothing was too expensive to welcome me home.”
“He’s very generous,” I continue, taking a slow step toward the door. I need to get out of here before I do something I can’t undo. “Especially with money that isn’t his.”
Her smile freezes on her face. “What did you say?”
“I said, I hope you enjoy the view. And the furniture. And whatever else you can get your hands on before the accounts are frozen.”
I don’t wait for her to process it. I walk past her, the box of my real life held against my chest like a shield. I don’t run. I walk with a deliberate, steady pace that I don’t feel but am somehow able to project.
“What are you talking about?” she calls after me, her voice suddenly shrill, the sweet facade cracking. “What accounts?”
I pause in the doorway of the bedroom, but I don’t turn around. “You should ask Zayn,” I say, looking straight ahead at the long hallway that leads to my freedom. “I’m sure he’ll explain the terms of his allowance to you.”
I can feel her fury radiating against my back. She’s sputtering, trying to form an insult, a threat. I don’t give her the chance. I walk away.
I walk through the living room, past the ring on the table, past the ghost of my marriage. I don’t look back.
The elevator ride down is silent. I stare at my reflection in the polished steel doors. My face is pale, my eyes are dark, but I am not broken. The woman staring back at me is not a victim. She is not a placeholder.
She is a woman who has just found her reason to fight.
Whitney thinks she’s taken my home. She thinks she’s taken my husband. She thinks she’s taken my life.
She has no idea. I’m the one with the inheritance. I’m the one with the power.
And I am going to burn her world to the ground.
