Not Chloe.
Not money.
His image.
Julian took another step toward her. “Clarissa, please. Don’t do this here.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
A thousand memories passed between them—her waiting alone at dinner tables, his cold shoulders, his late nights, his contempt, his laughter when she wore old dresses and pretended not to hear staff pitying her.
Then she said, “You brought your mistress here.”
Her eyes glittered.
“I brought my truth.”
PART 4 — The Wife He Hid Became the Woman Everyone Feared
Julian tried to reach for her hand.
Clarissa stepped back.
The small movement struck harder than a slap.
For three years, she had leaned toward him every time he turned away. She had apologized when he was cruel, softened when he was sharp, waited when he never came home. But now, standing beneath the chandelier light, she withdrew with the calm dignity of someone who had finally remembered her own name.
