Juliet Dunn waited outside the entrance of Jace's preschool, clutching the envelope her lawyer had dug up. She had been waiting for this moment, desperate to see the child she'd only glimpsed the day before. When she finally spotted that cherubic little face she'd been yearning for, tears sprang to her eyes. But reality snapped back with a sharp yank on her hair.
A stinging slap landed on her cheek, and she found herself looking up into Charleigh Mason's eyes. A bodyguard forced her to her knees before Charleigh. "Juliet, know your place. I'm ignoring your antics because Damien only sees you as a mild distraction. How dare you try to get close to Ace?"
Juliet, confused, asked in disbelief, "How dare you, as the other woman, treat me like this?"
Charleigh smirked. "Looks like you're even more naive than I thought. If I finished you off right here, right now, Damien wouldn't even blink."
"What are you saying… ah!" Before Juliet could finish, the bodyguard started pounding her with fists and kicks.
The commotion drew the attention of passersby. Their whispers rose as they watched the scene unfold. Charleigh's loud claim that she was teaching a "homewrecker" a lesson was enough to stop anyone from stepping in. Instead, some onlookers started filming on their phones. As Juliet lay battered, unable to lift her arms, Charleigh planted a foot on her face and contemptuously tossed her phone back to her before calling the police. "I'll show you exactly why you should know your place," Charleigh taunted.
At the police station, Juliet stared at the information glaring on the screen: Charleigh and Damien had been married for seven years. The realization hit her hard—she'd been the unwitting other woman all along.
"Young lady," Officer Amaia Carlson sneered, "why choose to wreck a home when you're so young?"
Juliet sat in shock, her face a mess of blood and tears. She couldn't tell which hurt more, her body or her heart.
When Damien arrived, he didn't even glance her way. He went straight to Charleigh, concern written all over his features. "Charleigh, are you okay? Didn't I tell you to leave these things to me? Are you hurt?"
Charleigh shook her head and simply said, "She followed Jace to his preschool."
Only then did Damien look at Juliet, their eyes meeting. What she saw wasn't the sympathy she'd hoped for, but pure annoyance.
"Mr. Freeman, given the circumstances, this can be classified as malicious stalking. Ms. Mason suggests seven days' detention—how would you like to proceed?" Officer Jakari Peterson asked.
Juliet waited for him to offer some explanation, but all she got was, "Let's go with that."
As the crowd dispersed, Juliet watched Damien carefully lead Charleigh away, extinguishing the last flicker of light in her heart.
"Remove your clothes," one of the officers instructed in the sterile confines of the station.
Juliet was bewildered. "What?"
"A strip search," the officer clarified. The words hit her like a storm.
Forced to comply, Juliet was held down, her dignity stripped along with her clothes. Cameras clicked without mercy, capturing her humiliation before they tossed her a standard detention uniform.
The next seven days were a haunting shadow over her life. The detention center held a mix of inmates. Once word got out that Juliet was there for being "the other woman," her torment was relentless. Her meals were thrown on the ground, she was assaulted over and over, and her hair was shoved into basins of water.
"You shameless homewrecker—you not only seduced someone's husband, you went after their kid!"
"How disgraceful can you be?"
"I heard she insulted the real wife, too!"
The abuse and humiliation never stopped. Juliet endured it for a grueling seven days before her release.
With her phone dead and her spirit crushed, she trudged home. The divorce papers she held were the only thing left of her dignity. With a bitter laugh, she tossed them into the fire, along with the fraudulent marriage certificates.
Suddenly, the sound of a key turning in the lock shattered the silence. It was Damien.
