Gwh softened her voice. "It''s fine. It''s not like I''m paying for this-this is all going on Mr. Everhart''s card. So tonight, let''s just say dinner''s on me, courtesy of him."


    Her wordsnded, and everyone exchanged looks around the table.


    They understood now: Mr. Everhart must have upset his wife earlier, and now Mrs. Everhart was getting her revenge by running up his card. In wealthy circles, this sort of thing happened all the time. The wives knew their husbands fooled around; they were savvy enough not to cause a scene.


    Unlike ordinary women, they didn''t throw tantrums, threaten to leave, or chase after their husbands in hysterics. They definitely didn''t go after the other woman. No, they had their own ways of coping-like spending their husbands'' money with abandon.


    Everyone got the message. The air rxed. Mrs. Everhart certainly carried herself with the poise of someone ustomed to privilege.


    If it had been any of them, and they''d discovered their fiancé had a mistress before the wedding, there would''ve been fireworks.


    Tonight, Gwh did something out of character: she poured herself a generous ss of wine. The only way she could let loose was to drink, and tonight, she was determined to do just that.


    Her ss seemed to refill itself endlessly—one moment empty, the next brimming full again. When her coworkers urged her to slow down, she just smiled and insisted her tolerance was unbeatable.


    They watched, dumbfounded, as she polished off an entire bottle of red wine and still spoke as clearly as ever. When she started on the next bottle, no one tried to stop her.


    ss after ss, Gwh lost track of how much she''d had. The world began to blur, scenes flickering


    before her eyes like a film setomet


    loop: Victoria and McNeil Langford arguing over and over. McNel disappearing all night, Victoria left hollow and broken. Gwh remembered overhearing her father''sughter with Violet, thening home to find her mother a<fn6696> N?w ?ovel chapt?rs are published on findnovel</fn6696>


    shadow of herself. Each time,


    resentment would rise up inside her, uninvited.


    s


    There was a time Victoria seemed to lose her mindpletely. Gwh had been scared just to be near her, and gradually, she''d grown closer to Violet instead.


    "Gwyn, don''t take it so hard. All men


    are the same. Once you''re married and have kids, you''ll


    see sometimes it''s ten times worse than this. The coworker beside Gwh, clearly tipsy, tried tofort her.  s


    But her words cut like a knife, leaving Gwh raw and defenseless.


    Another colleague chimed in, "Emma, please, just stop. Gwyn, I honestly don''t think Mr. Everhart is that kind of guy. Maybe that woman was the daughter of some big client, and he had no choice but to y along."


    Gwh was almost through her second bottle by now. She''d told herself all these excuses a hundred times already, hunting for reasons to forgive Hawthorne.


    But more than four hours had passed, and not a single call from him. Not even a text to exin what had happened.


    Years ago, Violet had snatched Gwh and her father away from Victoria right in front of her. Victoria had endured, never once filing for divorce. She must have loved her father desperately.


    The older Gwh got, the more she realized that in the adult world, some mistakes could never be undone. Especially for women. They could give me a hundred thousand chances, help them lie to themselves, but once that final


    straw broke, there was no turning back. No more words, no more regrets.  s


    Still smiling, Gwh kept drinking, her mind a tangled mess. Faces blurred in front of her. She murmured, her voice barely audible, "Hawthorne, don''t you even want to give me an exnation?"