She pointed at me and began shouting like a madwoman.
“You filthy maid! I already said I forgave you—why are you still making a scene?”
“Is your vanity so extreme that you need me to publicly admit the clothes you’re wearing aren’t cheap knockoffs?”
“Get out of my sight right now, or don’t blame me for what happens next.”
I was stunned by how skillfully the housekeeper twisted the narrative. Her viciousness was a far cry from the submissive, meek demeanor she had at home while serving me.
Rage surged through me. I grabbed her hair and yanked her toward me, fists flying.
“You shameless bitch! I’ve been too kind to you!”
I tore the jade necklace around her neck.
The teacher, realizing things were getting out of hand, immediately called for security to break us up.
Within seconds, I was pinned to the ground by two guards.
A crowd of parents gathered while picking up their children. After asking the teacher what had happened, they started whispering among themselves and throwing judgmental looks my way.
“So that’s Mr. Caleb's family maid? I heard that if Madam Sanchez hadn’t been so generous, her daughter wouldn’t even be allowed in this school.”
Hearing that, I nearly lost it.
Caleb—that was my husband’s name.
So now this woman and her son were pretending to be his actual family?
What the hell was going on?
I had been away for business most of the year. But if my housekeeper had really been posing as my husband’s wife, there was no way he wouldn’t know about it.
Unless... unless he was in on it.
A sinking suspicion settled in my gut.
Then I heard murmurs from the parents as they stared at the shattered jade on the ground.
“Oh no... that was top-grade imperial green jade,” one whispered. “That maid is done for. Even if she sold herself, she couldn’t afford to pay for that.”
The housekeeper’s name was Emilia.
My husband, Caleb, had married into my family. He was a live-in son-in-law. Years ago, he told me he had a distant female cousin looking for work. That cousin was Emilia Jones, and I naively agreed to let her work for us as a live-in housekeeper.
Because they claimed to be cousins, I never questioned anything.
Looking back now, that was my biggest mistake.
Outsiders always assumed Aetherion International Holdings was my husband’s empire. But the truth? I was the one behind the company. I was the real chairwoman. Only our close partners knew the truth.
Now I was being restrained on the ground, my dignity in ruins, staring up at Emilia—her hair in disarray, face smug and triumphant. I was about to demand how my husband could possibly become her man, but before I could speak, she seemed to sense danger. Her expression turned fierce as she jabbed a finger in my face.
“Therese , I’ve held back long enough! Even after you shamelessly seduced my husband, I stayed quiet because I didn’t want to cause a scene!”
“But now you’re forcing me to expose you, just so you can prove you’re not some maid?”
“If I don’t say anything, you act like some madwoman. But if I do... are you really prepared to air this kind of dirty laundry in public?”
“You just want to make a fool out of me, don’t you?!”
Her words hit me like a bomb exploding in my head.
From beginning to end, she had been deliberately faking her identity. Because if the public believed I was the maid—no matter how well-dressed I looked or how arrogant I acted—there was no way I’d dare break a priceless jade necklace. I wouldn’t be able to pay for it.
So to avoid suspicion, she flipped the script completely—painting me as a homewrecker, a mistress trying to pass herself off as the real wife.
And in doing so, even if people found out she had an affair with my husband, she could still cast herself as the victim.
The audacity... the manipulation... it was beyond anything I’d ever imagined.
Grinding my teeth, I hissed, “Which one of us is really the mistress here?”
