PART 1 — THE WOMAN THEY SAID WOULD NEVER RETURN
“You really thought you could sneak back in here?”
The young woman stepped directly in front of me at the top of the marble staircase.
Her silver dress was short, tight, and covered in glittering stones. One hand rested on her hip. The other pointed directly at my face.
“This is over,” she said loudly. “You lost the house, the company, and Adrian. Leave before security removes you.”
The ballroom became silent.
Nearly three hundred guests turned toward us.
Some recognized me immediately.
Others knew only the story my husband had spent the last eighteen months spreading.
That I had suffered a breakdown.
That I had abandoned my marriage.
That I had become too unstable to manage the family company.
The woman standing in front of me was Bianca Hale.
Thirty-nine years old.
My husband’s new executive adviser.
And, according to the gossip pages, the woman expected to become the next Mrs. Adrian Sterling.
She was also wearing my mother’s diamond earrings.
I looked at them for a moment.
Then I looked at her.
I did not argue.
I did not explain.
I simply stood there in a floor-length silver gown while its train rested behind me on the staircase.
Bianca laughed.
“Are you deaf?”
She looked toward the guards near the entrance.