CHAPTER 26

The door slammed shut behind Fiona for the final time, but the silence she left in her wake was deafening. Pearl stood frozen, her back to the room, her hands trembling at her sides. Her face burned, not from shame, but from the weight of everything that had just unraveled. The fake profile. The photos. The humiliation. The past clawed out of the shadows and paraded in front of the man she loved. And the worst part…the betrayal didn’t come from strangers or ghosts. It came from her own blood. Her knees buckled. She stumbled backward until she found the edge of the velvet chaise lounge and collapsed onto it, her chest heaving in ragged breaths. The tears she had kept at bay for years came rushing to the surface all at once. Pearl buried her face in her hands and let herself break. No more pretending. No more pride. Just the wreckage of a girl who had worked so hard to escape the past, only to have it thrown back in her face, crueler and louder than before. She sobbed until her rib