Amanda was no longer just an abstract fear, a nagging insecurity Olivia tried to rationalize away. Amanda was in her bedroom. In her bed. Fucking her husband.
The humiliation burned through her veins like acid. But the clarity burned hotter.
"Amanda," Olivia said, the name tasting like ash on her tongue.
Amanda offered a cool, almost amused smile. "Olivia."
That single, arrogant tone made the room feel unimaginably ugly.
James took another step toward Olivia, trying to close the space between them. "Liv, this got out of hand. I never wanted you to find out this way. I was going to tell you."
Olivia laughed once, a brittle, broken sound with no humor in it. “When? Before or after you forged my signature on new accounts I didn’t even know about?”
The line hit James like a physical blow. Amanda’s head snapped toward him, her cool facade cracking as surprise flickered across her features.
James whipped his attention back to Olivia, his panic morphing into defensive anger. "Do not bring that into this."
"It is all this," Olivia fired back.
"We need to talk downstairs," James demanded, his voice hardening as he tried to regain control of the situation.
"No." Olivia held her ground. He did not get to choose the room. He did not get to choose the subject. He did not get to choose the version of the truth. Not anymore.
Amanda scoffed, leaning back against the headboard. She was arrogant enough to believe that Olivia's devastation confirmed her own victory. "Honestly, I'm surprised it took you this long."
"Amanda, stop," James warned, casting a frantic look back at the bed.
"Why?" Amanda challenged, her dark eyes locking onto Olivia. "You really believed all those late nights were work? He was lonely, Olivia. Men don't stop touching their wives for no reason. Maybe if you had paid attention to him instead of playing the little bakery wife, he wouldn't have come to me."
The words were calculated and venomous. She wanted to wound Olivia. She wanted to prove she had won the prize, even standing in the middle of an ugly, humiliating wreck.
"I said stop," James barked. But he didn't tell her to stop because he was defending Olivia. He told her to stop because Amanda was making the scene harder for him to manage. He wasn't protecting his wife. He was managing damage control.
The realization hit Olivia harder than Amanda's insults.
Amanda ignored him. She let out a cruel, mocking laugh. "Don't act so shocked, Olivia. You had to know he was getting what he needed somewhere. You should be thanking me. At least now you can stop embarrassing yourself trying to keep a man who prefers me."
Something inside Olivia snapped. The last frayed thread of her composure broke.
She crossed the room in three rapid, furious strides. She lunged, her hand tangling deep into Amanda’s dark hair. With a visceral scream of rage, Olivia yanked her violently off the mattress.
Amanda shrieked, her hands scrambling blindly as she hit the hardwood floor with a heavy, painful thud. Before she could recover, Olivia brought her hand across Amanda’s cheek in a vicious, stinging slap.
The sound cracked like a gunshot.
Amanda gasped, touching her red, stinging cheek. Her eyes flashed with venom. "You crazy bitch!" she spat, looking up from the floor. "No wonder James was tired of fucking your fat, doughy body! He needed a real woman!"
Olivia drew her arm back and slapped her again, even harder this time, snapping Amanda's head to the side and silencing her.
"Amanda!" James lunged forward. He dropped to his knees, his hands reaching out to grab Amanda's shoulder, checking on his mistress before he even looked back at his wife.
Olivia watched him. Even now, while everything they had built lay shattered around them, James’s first instinct was to reach for Amanda.
That told Olivia everything she would ever need to know.
"You do not get to lie in my bed," Olivia spat, her chest heaving as she glared down at the woman on the floor, "and talk to me like I am the one who should be ashamed."
Olivia turned fully to James, the fire in her veins burning away her tears. "How long?"
