The Stand-In Wife's Spectacular Comeback

Clarine's fingernails bit so deeply into her palms that the skin nearly broke. A violent, white-hot rage erupted in her chest.

She didn't run down the stairs to scream at Marta. Instead, she pulled her phone from her pocket, hit record, and captured every vile word her stepmother said.

Marta hung up and walked toward the kitchen.

Clarine spun around and hurried back to the master bedroom. She pulled her encrypted laptop from her bag. Before she was Mrs. Lynch, she was someone who paid attention to the details Evert ignored. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. She navigated to the Apex Club's VIP client portal and typed in the universal backend override password-a string of numbers she had once seen Evert's assistant use. She prayed they hadn't bothered to update it. Within minutes, she was into the security server.

She pulled up the top-floor hallway cameras. The footage from 11:00 PM to 11:15 PM was a wall of static. Someone had wiped it.

Clarine's eyes narrowed. She switched to the exterior street cameras. At 2:00 AM, the footage showed Jax Kade storming out of the lobby, kicking a trash can in frustration. He was alone.

Clarine slammed the laptop shut. If Jax left angry at 2:00 AM, he wasn't the man in the bed. She had slept with a total stranger.

The weight of the betrayal and the violation pressed down on her lungs. She glanced at the calendar on her phone. Her blood ran cold. She was ovulating.

Clarine grabbed her keys, threw on a trench coat, and put on a pair of dark sunglasses and a medical mask.

She drove to a rundown, 24-hour pharmacy on the edge of Manhattan. She kept her head down, handed the cashier a twenty-dollar bill, and walked out with a box of Plan B.

Sitting in the driver's seat of her car, she ripped the foil open. She swallowed the pill dry. It scraped down her throat, leaving a bitter, chalky aftertaste.

She crumpled the empty box and the receipt into a tight ball, shoved it into her coat pocket, and drove back to the estate.

When Clarine walked into the bedroom, the adrenaline crash hit her. The room spun. She tossed her coat onto the armchair.

As the coat hit the cushion, the crumpled receipt slipped out of the shallow pocket and fell silently onto the thick carpet, landing just inches away from the metal wastebasket.

Clarine was too exhausted to notice. She collapsed onto the bed in her clothes and fell into a dark, dreamless sleep.

At 3:00 PM, the screech of tires tore through the driveway.

Evert kicked the front doors open. He was vibrating with a dark, explosive energy. When he woke up in the hotel and saw Cherie next to him, a wave of intense physical repulsion had hit him. He didn't understand why, but he had thrown a blank check at her and left immediately.

He took the stairs two at a time and shoved the bedroom door open.

Clarine was asleep on the bed. Evert walked toward her, intending to demand why she left the gala early.

As he stood over her, his eyes caught the edge of her black turtleneck. The fabric was slightly bunched, revealing an inch of pale skin on her collarbone.

And a dark, violent hickey.

Evert's pupils dilated. A deafening roar filled his ears. The rational part of his brain snapped in half.

He reached down and violently yanked the collar of her sweater down.

Her neck and chest were covered in fresh, aggressive bite marks and bruises.

"Wake up!" Evert roared, grabbing her arm and hauling her up from the mattress.

Clarine gasped, her eyes flying open in terror. She thrashed against his grip, her brain still foggy from sleep.

"Whose marks are these?" Evert's voice was a demonic growl. His fingers dug into her biceps. "Which bastard did you spread your legs for?"

Clarine's mouth opened, but no words came out. She couldn't tell him she didn't know.

Evert shoved her back onto the bed. As he stepped back, his expensive leather shoe caught the edge of the wastebasket, kicking it aside in his blind fury.

He looked down. The crumpled receipt lay exposed on the carpet.

He snatched it up and smoothed out the paper. The bold black letters screamed at him: PLAN B - EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTIVE.

Evert let out a chilling, hollow laugh. He threw the receipt directly at her face. It fluttered onto her lap like a dead leaf.

"You cheap whore," Evert spat, his chest heaving. "You break the loyalty clause of our contract, and you try to hide the evidence in my own house?"

"Evert, listen to me-" Clarine started, her voice shaking.

"Shut up!" he bellowed. He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed his legal team. His eyes never left hers, burning with absolute hatred.

"Draft the divorce papers. Now," Evert ordered into the phone. "Invoke the infidelity clause. She gets nothing. Strip her naked and throw her on the street."