Chapter 5
"How long, Marcus? How many dinners have you hosted in my home while wearing my clothes and drinking my vintage Bordeaux?" Vanessa asked quietly.
Jessica shrank back into her seat, the champagne gold dress looking less like a symbol of luxury and more like a badge of shame.
"It was a mistake, a momentary lapse in judgment fueled by stress at the firm," Marcus lied automatically, defaulting to corporate damage control.
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"A lapse in judgment that required her to wear my custom designer evening wear from the walk-in closet upstairs?" Vanessa pressed with razor precision.
The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating, broken only by the distant hum of traffic outside their upscale suburban American neighborhood.
