His Secret Mistress, Her Public Shame
My father-in-law was killed in a hit-and-run. But the first thing my husband said in the hospital waiting room wasn't about his grief. It was about money.
"Take the seventy-five thousand dollars, Eve. Your father wasn't worth more than that."
He thought the man lying in the morgue was my father. He handed me a settlement agreement that framed him as a con artist who' d staged the accident for a payday.
I refused. He became a monster, threatening me before cutting me off financially. I soon discovered why: the driver was his pregnant mistress, and this was all a desperate cover-up to protect her. He was willing to destroy my family to save his new one.
He called me weak and sentimental, an emotional nuisance he could easily manage. He was so sure he could break me and buy my silence.
In court, his lawyer presented the settlement agreement, ready to paint me as a greedy, unstable liar. But then the judge cleared her throat to make the formal announcement.
"The deceased is Mr. Gordon Charles."
It wasn't my father on that morgue slab. It was his.
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Chapter 4
Eve Cox POV:
It started two days later. A video appeared online, titled "Elderly Man Attempts Insurance Scam, Gets More Than He Bargained For." It was dashcam footage, but it was choppy, maliciously edited. It showed a grainy figure-Gordon-stepping off the curb. The video was cut just before the impact, making it look like he' d deliberately lunged into the car' s path.
The internet did what the internet does. It exploded.
#ScammingGrandpa trended. The comments were a cesspool of vitriol. People called him a parasite, a drain on society. They said he got what he deserved. Every comment was a fresh stab of pain, not just for Gordon, but for the lie it represented.
My phone rang. It was Clotilde Buckley, Gordon' s sister. Jonathan' s aunt.
"Eve, have you seen it?" Her voice, usually so full of brisk, no-nonsense energy, was choked with tears. "They' re calling him a criminal. My brother… they' re desecrating his memory."
Before I could answer, she was at my door, her face a thunderous mask of grief and rage. She held her tablet out to me, the vicious comments scrolling across the screen.
"Jonathan has to do something!" she cried, pacing my living room like a caged lioness. "He' s a lawyer! He has to sue them! He has to make this right!"
I felt a pang of guilt, a knot of deceit tightening in my stomach. I hadn't told her. I hadn't told anyone about Jonathan' s role in this nightmare. I simply said, "He' s not answering my calls."
"Then we' ll go to him," she declared, her eyes flashing. She grabbed my arm, her grip surprisingly strong for a woman in her late sixties. "He can' t ignore us if we' re standing in his office."
The drive to his gleaming downtown office tower was a blur. Clotilde muttered curses under her breath, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. My own heart pounded a steady, heavy drumbeat of dread.
Jonathan' s young assistant tried to block our path. "Mr. Charles is in a very important meeting," she said, wringing her hands nervously.
Clotilde was having none of it. "I am his aunt, and this is his wife," she announced, her voice booming through the quiet reception area. "We are his most important meeting."
She shoved past the astonished assistant and threw open the doors to Jonathan' s corner office.
And there he was.
He wasn't in a meeting. He was standing by the panoramic window, his arms wrapped around Dallas Galloway. He was murmuring something into her hair, and she was crying softly against his chest, her pregnant belly pressing into his expensive suit.
The scene was so grotesquely domestic it took my breath away.
Clotilde let out a sound that was half gasp, half roar. She surged forward and slapped Dallas across the face, the sound cracking like a whip in the silent office.
"You!" Clotilde shrieked, her face purple with rage. "You' re the one? The little tramp who killed my brother?"
Dallas stumbled back, clutching her cheek, her eyes wide with terror. "Jonny!" she cried, looking to Jonathan for protection.
Jonathan moved then, stepping between the two women. He grabbed his aunt' s arms, his face a mask of cold fury. "That' s enough, Clotilde! Get out of my office."
"Let go of me, you ungrateful whelp!" she spat, struggling against his grip. "Have you no shame? Your father is dead, and you' re comforting his killer? While the whole world calls him a thief? A lie you probably started!"
"This is my life!" Jonathan yelled back, his voice echoing off the glass walls. "My business! It has nothing to do with you or him! He was an old man, his life was over anyway!"
The words struck Clotilde like a physical blow. She stopped struggling, her body going slack in his grasp. The fight went out of her eyes, replaced by a look of profound, bottomless disgust.
"You are no nephew of mine," she said, her voice dropping to a chilling whisper. She pulled her arms free, smoothed down her jacket, and looked at him as if he were something she' d found on the bottom of her shoe. "You are nothing to this family. You are nothing."
She turned without another word and walked out of the office, her back ramrod straight.
Jonathan' s furious gaze snapped to me. I hadn' t moved from the doorway.
"You," he hissed, pointing a finger at me. "You did this. You brought her here."
He stalked towards me, his eyes burning with hatred. Dallas cowered behind his large desk.
"I' ll see you in court, Eve," he snarled, his face inches from mine. "And I will enjoy tearing you apart on the stand. I' ll make sure you walk away with nothing. No son, no money, no dignity. Nothing."
I looked into his eyes, the eyes of the man I once loved, and felt nothing but a cold, vast emptiness.
"Why, Jonathan?" I asked, the question genuine. "Why do you hate me so much?"
He leaned in closer, his voice a low, venomous whisper. "Because you slapped me. And I will never, ever forgive you for it."
He thought this was about a slap. He had destroyed his family, his honor, his soul, and he thought it was because I had dared to defy him.
I just turned and walked away, leaving him alone with the killer he was so determined to protect. There was nothing left to say.