Now, seated three tables away from the podium in an ice-blue Chanel suit, Cynthia Holloway lowered her face, suddenly paying desperate, obsessive attention to the linen napkin in her lap, completely unwilling to meet my gaze.
She had set the trap. She had lured me to this lawn so that her arrogant, narcissistic son could stage a public execution of my femininity before his business associates.
Brielle smiled down at me from the dais, her manicured fingers patting her swollen belly, her eyes radiating that cruel, patronizing pity that younger mistresses reserve for discarded first wives.
I did not scream. I did not throw my lemonade into Preston’s face.
When a woman spends four years rebuilding her life from the foundation up, she learns that composure is a weapon far sharper than a screaming argument.
I carefully picked up my cloth napkin, blotted my lips, and folded it into an immaculate, razor-sharp triangle beside my glass.
