### Chapter 4
I gave a thin, mocking smile.
"Miss Cooley, no time to find yourself a boyfriend, but plenty of time to seduce another woman's husband and play the mistress."
"And on top of that, you team up with my husband to steal the jade pendant my mother had blessed for us?"
The two housemaids nearby turned to her at once, startled, whispering between themselves.
"Wasn't she supposed to be Mr. Weiss's friend? So she's the mistress, and she comes right into the house…"
"Exactly. Steals another woman's man, then steals our mistress's things too. Shameless."
They pitched their voices just loud enough for Ellie to hear. Her face went a furious, mottled red.
"You filthy little servants, what do you know? Watch yourselves, or I'll have Stuart throw you both out!"
Seeing how brazen she was, the two of them rolled their eyes in open contempt and went back to their work.
I walked over, my voice cutting. "Give it back."
"A worthless piece of junk. Fine, you can have it." She pulled the pendant off the dog's neck, and the next instant a vicious glint flashed in her eyes.
She let go.
It cracked against the ground, breaking into pieces.
Ellie clapped a hand over her mouth in fake horror. "Oh! I'm so sorry, how much was it? I'll pay you back."
She dug out her wallet. "Old folks only buy cheap things, right? Thirty dollars should cover it."
My mother's face rose up in front of me, blood streaming down her head, still smiling at me.
My fingers shook. The fury was past holding back.
Crack!
A slap landed hard across Ellie's face.
She stumbled back, hand pressed to her cheek, her eyes red in an instant. "You— you hit me?"
My gaze was sharp, each word spaced and deliberate. "Let me tell you something. I see exactly what you're playing at. I don't say it, but that doesn't mean I'll go on letting you humiliate me forever."
Murder flashed in her eyes, and she made to lunge at me. Then her gaze caught on something behind me, her face changed, and the tears came down twice as hard.
"I didn't, I don't know what you're talking about…"
I gritted my teeth, about to speak again, when a sharp shout came from behind me.
"Seraphina, what do you think you're doing?!"
I turned. Stuart was coming out of the kitchen, his face dark enough to frighten.
He strode straight to Ellie and brushed his fingers gently over the red mark on her cheek, his eyes pained, as if he were the one who'd been burned. "She hit you? What happened?"
Ellie sniffled out her version of events, and Stuart's face only grew darker.
"It's a worthless little trinket. You had to hit someone over it?" He turned and rounded on me, his voice cold as ice.
"A worthless little trinket?" My voice trembled. "Stuart, that was my mother's keepsake!"
My reddened eyes, my shaking shoulders, gave him a moment's pause.
"What did you say?! Your mother passed away?" "While you wouldn't take my call because you'd rather be at the side of your precious sister's dog while it gave birth, my mother died in a car accident!"
His eyes flew wide. His mouth opened. "How could your mother possibly—"
Before he could finish, Ellie cut in.
"Passed away? I ran into your mother this morning, out shopping with Bradley."
"You bank on Stuart spoiling you, so you lie straight to his face. A woman with no shame at all. Stuart had nothing but the worst luck the day he met you!"
She snatched up the shards of the pendant from the ground and hurled them, furious, into the pond in the courtyard.
My mother's love for me vanished for good beneath the splash.
The rage swallowed me again like a rising tide, and I swung my hand at her.
Crack!
The slap never reached Ellie's face. Instead, Stuart's hand came down hard across mine.
"Cursing your own child and your own mother. Seraphina, aren't you afraid it'll come back on you?"
"And Ellie already offered to pay you back, so what more do you want? Not happy with the amount?" He pulled out his checkbook and scrawled a figure. "Is this enough?"
I held my burning cheek, staring at the check he held out, my heart feeling like an unseen hand had crushed it.
When I didn't take it, he tore off another check and wrote a new number.
"Not enough?" His tone was flat, as though this were only a deal being struck. "How about this, then?"
One check after another was pushed in front of me, the amounts climbing higher and higher, while my heart only went colder.
I reached out and took the last check, my fingertips trembling slightly.
"That's enough."
My voice was very soft, but it took everything I had to say it.
This marriage of ours was enough too.
I turned to leave, but before I'd taken two steps, Stuart's voice came at my back, cold and hard as iron.
"Stop right there."
My steps halted.
His tone left no room for argument. "You took the money. The matter of you hitting Ellie isn't finished."
