Chapter 14 - LUNCH WITH THE OTHER WOMANCambria did not leave immediately.
Pride kept her seated.
“You think you're better than me.”
Arielle looked up.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. I think I made different choices.”
Cambria laughed bitterly.
“Easy when you were born with choices.”
Arielle studied her.
“My father was a public-school principal.”
Cambria stopped.
Arielle continued.
“I married into money. I wasn't born into it.”
“But you fit.”
“No.”
Arielle smiled slightly.
“I learned.”
Cambria’s anger softened into something uglier.
Envy.
Arielle saw it.
“Evelyn told you I was cold.”
Cambria’s eyes moved.
Good.
“She told you Dorian was unhappy.”
No answer.
“She told you he needed someone softer.”
Cambria looked toward the window.
Arielle knew.
“How much did she promise you?”
Cambria snapped:
“Nothing.”
That sounded true.
“Then what?”
“She said I deserved a better life.”
There it was.
Arielle leaned forward.
“And all you had to do was help destroy mine.”
Cambria’s face hardened.
“You destroyed your own marriage by making him miserable.”
Arielle nodded slowly.
“You sound exactly like Evelyn.”
Cambria stood.
This time she left.
Arielle remained seated.
She had no recording.
No confession.
But she now understood the emotional architecture.
Evelyn had not needed to pay Cambria.
May you like
She had sold her belonging.
For someone who spent her childhood outside wealthy rooms, that might have been more valuable than cash.
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