Chapter 3
When I got back to the Evans family house, the fingerprint lock wouldn't open.
My fingerprint had been deleted.
My parents, who used to spoil me rotten, now treated me like I was poison.
The housekeeper who had watched me grow up came at me with a broom.
"This isn't your house. Get out!"
I shouted for my parents.
But neither of them showed up.
Only Sophie came out, arms crossed, sneering, "What are you still doing here?"
My throat closed up, and it took me a long time to speak. "I lived in this house for twenty-five years. Do Mom and Dad feel nothing for me?"
Sophie leaned in close and dropped her voice. "You were never worth as much to them as money.
"Michael put 200 million dollars into Evans & Co., and his one condition was that they cut you off completely.
"Twenty-five years of raising you, all that so-called love, and none of it is worth a damn against money."
My parents' choice was plain enough.
I had turned into a joke.
Twenty-five years counted for nothing.
They threw me out more easily than a person drops a stray animal.
Everything I had believed was deep between us turned to foam in a heartbeat.
I had no home anymore.
Michael didn't want me, and my parents drove me out.
I refused to accept it.
I made a scene in front of Sarah, and I put all of it online.
I laid out every charge I had against Michael, including the affair, and I held nothing back.
But Michael's PR team hit me hard.
Michael posted under his own name.
In it, I was a spoiled, vicious woman who had stolen the real heiress' place and done nothing but harm.
I had bullied classmates and targeted girls from poor families.
They said I had used my money to buy paid accounts and sell myself as the queen of the piano.
Every award I had worked twenty years for came from hired players behind a curtain.
Overnight, the whole internet came after me.
My private accounts took in thousands of vile messages a day.
The theater company fired me and took me to court.
Every dollar, every asset, and every share in my name went back to the Evans family.
All I had left in the world was 1,700 dollars in my Venmo balance.
When my parents called, for one second I let myself believe they hadn't given me up.
"Sophie and Michael are getting married. Sign the divorce papers."
The tears the internet couldn't pull out of me came down like rain.
My mother must have heard me crying, because she let out a sigh.
"Charlotte, don't hold this against us.
"If you want to blame anyone, blame yourself for falling for Michael and chasing him with no shame.
"If your temper hadn't been so bad, if you hadn't made his life hard all those years, he wouldn't hate you the way he does now.
"We had no choice. If we hadn't done what he asked, Evans & Co. would have gone under.
"We can't let everything our family worked for over two generations just get ruined because of us."
It took me a long time to snap out of it after the call ended.
Winter had arrived.
The north wind was fierce, stinging my cheeks.
I went back to Sterling Manor.
In the living room, Michael and Sophie were acting all lovey-dovey in the kitchen.
I stood at the door and watched for half an hour, as if I were punishing myself with it.
My legs went numb, and I was freezing all over.
So Michael did have that kind of love in him.
After Sophie went upstairs, Michael, cigarette between his lips, sneered, "Enjoy the show?"
I looked up at him, my voice trembling.
"Why are you doing this to me?
"I have a spoiled temper, but I never bullied anyone, never humiliated anyone, and never hired a player to win for me.
"Michael, why are you doing this to me?"
Michael gave me a slight, mocking smirk, his eyes dripping with disdain.
"Charlotte, the way you look down from up there disgusts me."
Ten years earlier, Michael had only just come back to the Sterling family.
Plenty of kids at our prep school laughed at him and called him a hick.
They said he had never seen anything of the world and was a bookworm and nothing more.
Michael took the abuse in silence and almost never fought back.
I couldn't stand it, so I made them apologize to Michael.
My temper was famous through the whole upper crust.
And my family's business was climbing then, so nobody dared disrespect me.
After the boys apologized, they rolled their eyes and muttered, "Big deal, getting protected by a girl."
Michael's face was as red as a lobster.
I comforted him, saying, "Don't worry, I've got your back."
Maybe what I thought was kindness was just charity in Michael's eyes.
I couldn't hold back, and I slapped him hard across the face.
"Michael, you're the one who makes me sick!
"Bring out the divorce papers. I'll sign, and after today we never see each other again."
Michael's face stayed turned aside, and he pushed his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
"Charlotte, was the punishment not enough for you to understand where you stand?"
I laughed without any warmth. "I saw what you can do online already, Mr. Sterling."
I signed the divorce papers with a wide sweep of my name and walked out.
The next day, my private photos were spread across the whole internet.
They were the photos from the night of the assault.
My parents wept online and told everyone I was loose by nature and had been drinking in bars and taking my clothes off since I was young.