"The servants' quarters?"
I stared at Guy in disbelief.
His jaw was clenched tight. "Once Mabel's baby is born, you can move back."
I looked up at the man I'd loved for so long, my eyes flooding with tears.
I had given him everything.
And he wanted me to wait on the woman who'd killed my daughter. To serve the bastard child growing in her belly.
My nails dug into my palms. Blood rushed to my head, a deafening buzz filling my ears.
I stared at the murderer standing in front of me, rage swelling inside me like a living thing.
I raised my hand, but Guy's voice cut through, dripping with menace. "Don't forget your mother is still in the hospital."
My hand froze midair. The words struck like lightning.
My mother was all I had left. Nothing could happen to her.
My nails bit deeper into my palms, holding back the fury by sheer will. My voice trembled. "Fine. But I have some documents that need your signature."
I grabbed the papers from the nightstand and slipped the divorce agreement in among them.
Guy snatched them impatiently. He was about to read through them when Mabel interrupted.
"Guy, I don't like these decorations. I want them replaced with something else..."
So he scrawled his signature in a rush and tossed the papers into my arms.
I looked down at the documents pressed against my chest, bitterness rising in my throat.
Tears blurred my vision as I watched Mabel sweep the ornaments into the trash. My heart felt crushed in a giant fist, squeezing until I couldn't breathe.
Every single piece in that bedroom was something Guy and I had spent hours choosing together. When he'd placed them on the shelves, he'd pulled me close and taken a photo with each one. In those pictures, his eyes had been soft, brimming with love.
Now all that love belonged to Mabel.
The bitterness slowly settled into something cold and still. I wiped my tears, turned, and walked out.
I dialed the first number in my contacts.
"I need you to finalize the divorce proceedings. And start acquiring shares in James Group."
Everything Guy cared about most, I was going to take it all.
That night, I lay on the narrow bed in the servants' quarters, my heart frozen solid, staring at the ceiling until dawn.
When the sky outside the window began to lighten, I forced myself up and pulled on the maid's uniform. I stood before the mirror.
The woman staring back had swollen red eyes and tangled hair, looking no better than a stray dog.
Was this really me?
The door burst open. Bodyguards flooded in and dragged me to Mabel.
Something cruel and amused flickered behind her eyes. She seized my arm, her grip bruising. "Oh, sister. Still here, clinging on with that shameless face of yours? Why bother occupying a place that was never yours?" She let out a little laugh. "Silly me, I forgot. You're so in love with Guy, you just can't bear to leave."
Before I could get a single word out, she raised her voice. "Someone, grab her!"
The guards swarmed in, locking my arms on both sides.
Their grip was crushing, enough to splinter bone. A vicious kick buckled my knees, and white-hot pain shot straight through my skull as I crashed to the floor.
I clenched my teeth so hard they ached, forcing words through the gap. "What the hell do you want, Mabel?"
"Let's make a little wager, sister. Let's see who Guy really cares about most."
Mabel pulled a bottle of red wine from the cabinet. She grabbed my chin and forced the wine into my mouth.
I was severely allergic to alcohol.
I clamped my jaw shut with everything I had, but the liquid still poured down my throat and into my stomach.
A searing burn blazed from my throat to my gut, then spread through my entire body.
Within seconds, my skin flushed red and began to swell. Clusters of blisters crawled up my arms and crept along my neck.
Then she ordered the guards to drag me to the edge of the swimming pool. From behind her back, she produced my daughter's keepsake locket, the one she'd worn since birth.
"Don't you touch that!"
My vision was already blurring, my throat swelling shut. I thrashed against the guards despite the agony tearing through me, my voice raw with desperation.
Mabel leaned in close to my ear, her whisper dripping with venom. "Amber Fox, why should you get a brother who adores you? A good husband? Everything you have, I'm going to take it all."
Then came the splash. She flung the locket into the pool.
"No!"
The fury that erupted gave me a strength I didn't know I had. I tore free of the guards, grabbed Mabel by the collar, and hauled her into the water. "Who gave you permission to throw that? Since you did, you're going to find it for me!"
Water exploded around us. I fought through the pain and shoved Mabel beneath the surface, searching frantically for the locket at the same time.
My arms swept blindly through the water. My fingertips scraped the tile at the bottom, but there was no cold metal.
Where... where was it...
The allergic reaction was tearing through me. My whole body shook. Each breath came harder than the last.
The water's surface warped and blurred before my eyes. My throat had swollen so tight I could barely draw air.
Mabel's thrashing and sputtering filled my ears, broken fragments of a scream. "Help... help me... Guy..."
Then a large hand clamped around my wrist and wrenched me off her.
