Chapter 6 - Shadows from the PastTwo weeks after the takeover, I settled into my new office—the executive suite that had once belonged to Julian. The room had been completely redecorated: the harsh masculine blacks and dark mahoganies were replaced with warm creams, soft lighting, and framed photographs of my beautiful daughter, Lyra.
My phone buzzed on the sleek marble desk. It was an alert from private investigators I had hired to dig into Julian’s financial background before our marriage. For years, I had suspected something was off about how quickly he had climbed the social ladder, but love—or rather, the illusion of it—had made me blind.
I tapped the screen and opened an encrypted PDF file labeled CONFIDENTIAL: STERLING-SINCLAIR CONNECTIONS.
What I read made my breath hitch.
Julian hadn't just fallen out of love with Sienna naturally five years ago. He had engineered their breakup. Back in college, when Sienna’s family faced financial ruin, Julian had secretly intercepted communications, fabricated evidence that Sienna was cheating on him with a wealthy investor, and manipulated her into leaving the country—all so he could position himself to marry me, the heiress to a massive medical technology fortune.
He had played us both like pawns in a long, calculated game of social climbing.
And Sienna? She had no idea. She still thought Julian was her tragic, star-crossed lover who had been forced apart from her by circumstance.
A slow, dangerous smile curved my lips. If Julian loved playing puppet master, he was going to love watching his two worlds collide.
May you like
I picked up my desk phone and dialed a direct, private number.
"Sienna? It's Clara Sterling," I said smoothly when the line picked up. "I think you and I need to have a cup of coffee. There's something you need to know about the man who ruined both of our lives."
