Genevie froze. "What?"
"I said get lost!" I shoved her hard enough that she fell, landing among the glass. "Listen carefully, Genevie Sterling. Harper is my wife. I have zero interest in any other woman. Now get out of my sight!"
Genevie sat sprawled on the debris-covered floor, face white. Her eyes reddened, lips trembling, the picture of wounded innocence.
"Kirill... how can you treat me like this... I thought you loved me..."
The door swung open. Olga walked in, cane in hand, two guards behind her. One held a thick stack of files.
"Madam Olga..." Genevie scrambled up, forcing a placating smile. "How did you—"
Olga ignored her.
She stopped in front of Genevie, thumped her cane hard on the floor, took the files from the guard, and threw them at Genevie's feet.
"Look for yourself." Olga's voice was poison-tipped steel. "See whatyou've done."
Genevie's face went white.
Papers scattered. The top one was a photograph.
I looked down. My pupils contracted.
In the photo, Genevie wore a revealing red dress, arms wrapped around a middle-aged man's neck, kissing him passionately. I recognized him—a Washington senator with serious political clout.
"What is this?" My voice came from an ice cavern.
Genevie's face drained of color. "It's... it's fake... someone photoshopped it to frame me..."
"Fake?" Olga laughed coldly, picking up another photo and throwing it in her face. "What about this one? And this?"
More photos spilled out—Genevie with the senator at a hotel entrance, in a private dining room, on a yacht... every single one damning.
"Genevie Sterling." Olga enunciated each word. "Still going to keep up the act?"
Genevie knelt on the floor, trembling. "I-I can explain..."
"Explain?" Olga crouched down, grabbed her chin, and forced her to look at me. "Explain how you actively seduced Julian? Explain where those 'domestic abuse' bruises really came from?"
Tears streamed down Genevie's face. "Kirill... I left you back then because... because my father forced me..."
"So." My voice was terrifyingly calm. "Whose baby was it? The senator's? Some other guy's?"
Genevie broke down. She knelt there, shaking her head frantically. "No... Kirill, you have to believe me... I really love you... everything I did was to get back to you..."
I watched her hysteria with strange calm.
Weird.
This woman used to be my first love, my only comfort as a teenager. I thought I'd hate her, rage at her, hurt.
But now I just felt sick.
Sick that I'd ever loved someone like this. Sick that I'd defied my only family for her, and the woman who actually loved me.
A thought flashed through my mind.
If Genevie could fake abuse, fake pregnancy, fake devotion, then that night on the stairs—
