Chapter 4 - Lies Exposed
By noon, the story was everywhere.
Billionaire Heiress Evelyn Vale Ousts Cheating, Embezzling Husband From Family Empire
From Snow To CEO: The Woman Who Took Back Everything
Grant Harrington: How A Spoiled Heir Threw Away A Billion-Dollar Life
Every news channel, every business site, every gossip blog in the country was running the story. The press release had been picked up by the Associated Press within minutes, and the details were spilling out faster than Marcus and I could have hoped. The embezzlement. The fraud. The affair with Brianna Tate. The twins thrown into the snow.
The public was furious.
On social media, #CancelHarrington was trending number one worldwide. People were posting screenshots of Grant’s old Instagram photos—him on yachts, him in private jets, him bragging about his “hard work”—with captions like “All stolen from his wife.” A video someone had taken outside the mansion that morning, of Victoria screaming at the sheriff’s deputies as they served the eviction notice, had gone viral with twelve million views in three hours.
I sat in my new office—the corner office that used to be Grant’s—watching the coverage on the big screen, while Marcus updated me on the numbers.
“Company stock is up eight percent since the rebrand announcement,” he said, scrolling through his tablet. “Investors love the Vale name. We’ve already gotten calls from seven new clients who want to do business with Vale Luxury Developments. And the public support for you is overwhelming. Ninety-two percent of the comments on our social media posts are positive. People are calling you a hero, Evelyn. A feminist icon.”
I nodded, but I didn’t feel like a hero. I felt like a mother who’d had to burn down her own life to protect her children. “What about Grant and Victoria? Where are they now?”
“Grant is at a cheap motel on the edge of town. He tried to check into the Plaza, but his card was declined. He called his father three times in the last hour. Arthur won’t take his calls. Victoria is… well, she’s still at the mansion, technically. The deputies gave her until noon to leave, but she’s barricaded herself in the master bedroom, screaming that she’s not going anywhere. The sheriff is on his way back with a moving crew.”
“Good. Make sure they take everything. Every piece of furniture, every painting, every piece of jewelry. It all belongs to the trust. If she tries to take anything that’s not hers, arrest her for theft.”
“Already handled.” Marcus looked up, his expression serious. “There’s something else. Brianna Tate. Grant’s mistress. She just posted a twenty-minute video to TikTok. It’s already at five million views.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Let’s see it.”
Marcus tapped the screen, and Brianna’s face filled the monitor. She was twenty-four, blonde, pretty in a generic sort of way, sitting on a couch in what looked like a very expensive apartment, crying into a tissue.
“I just want everyone to know the truth,” she said, her voice shaking. “Grant Harrington lied to me. He told me he was getting a divorce. He told me Evelyn was crazy, that she was abusive, that she’d trapped him with the twins. I believed him. I had no idea he was stealing from the company. I had no idea Evelyn was the owner. I’m just a girl from a small town who fell in love with the wrong man. I’m so sorry, Evelyn. If I’d known the truth, I never would have gotten involved. Never.”
The video cut to screenshots of text messages between her and Grant—him telling her he loved her, him promising to leave me, him begging her not to tell anyone about the baby.
The baby.
I leaned forward, my eyes narrowing. “Did we know about this?”
Marcus shook his head. “No. We knew about the affair, but not about a baby. She says she’s three months pregnant. With Grant’s child.”
The room went quiet for a moment. A baby. Another child, brought into the world because Grant couldn’t keep his pants on. A child who would grow up with a father in prison, a mother who’d sold her story to the tabloids, and a last name that was now synonymous with disgrace.
“Get me a copy of the full video,” I said. “And have our investigators look into Brianna. Find out if she’s telling the truth about the pregnancy. Find out if she knew who I was all along. And find out if Grant was paying her more than the consulting fee.”
“On it.” Marcus paused. “What do you want to do about the baby? If it’s Grant’s, he’ll have child support obligations. Even in prison.”
I thought about my own sons, sleeping safely in the penthouse nursery. I thought about how different their lives would be from this new baby’s. How they would have every advantage, every opportunity, every bit of love a mother could give—while this child would be born into scandal and poverty, all because of Grant’s selfishness.
“If the baby is his,” I said slowly, “we’ll set up a trust. Not for Grant—for the child. Enough money to make sure it has a good home, a good education, everything it needs. But only if Brianna agrees to stay away from us. She gets one lump sum, and she signs a nondisclosure agreement. No more interviews, no more social media posts, no more trying to cash in on the Harrington name. If she refuses, she gets nothing. And we fight her on every penny of child support until Grant is out of prison.”
Marcus nodded, making a note. “Fair. One more thing—your sister is on line one. She saw the news. She’s been trying to reach you since this morning.”
I smiled, the first real smile I’d had all day. My sister, Charlotte, was three years younger than me, a doctor in Boston, and the only person in the world who knew everything about me. She’d been the one who’d talked me into hiding my identity when I’d started dating Grant. She’d been the one who’d warned me he wasn’t good enough.
“Put her through,” I said, picking up the phone.
“Took you long enough,” Charlotte said, her voice warm and fierce. “I’ve been calling you for six hours. Are you okay? Are the boys okay? Do you need me to fly out there? I can be on a plane in an hour—”
“Slow down,” I said, laughing softly. “We’re fine. All of us. The boys are perfect. I’m fine. Better than fine, actually. I finally did it, Lottie. I stopped hiding.”
“I saw,” she said, and I could hear the pride in her voice. “I saw the press conference. I saw the look on Grant’s face when they threw him out of the building. God, it was beautiful. Mom and Dad are watching from the yacht. Dad says he always knew you’d take over the world. Mom says she’s going to send Grant’s mother a very strongly worded fruit basket.”
I laughed, wiping a tear from my eye. I’d been so focused on the revenge, on the business, on protecting my sons… I’d almost forgotten I had a family who loved me, who’d been waiting for me to stop hiding behind a lie.
“Tell them I love them,” I said. “And tell Mom no fruit baskets. I don’t want Victoria to think we’re being nice to her.”
“Already told her. She says she’ll send a toaster instead. With a note that says ‘Good luck being poor.’”
We talked for another ten minutes, Charlotte making me promise to call her every day, to send her photos of the boys, to let her know if I needed anything. When I hung up, I felt lighter than I had in years.
At 1:30 PM, Marcus came back into the office, his face grim.
“We got the results on Brianna,” he said. “She is pregnant. Three months, exactly. Paternity test will take a few weeks, but the timing lines up with the affair. And… she knew who you were. From the very beginning. Grant told her you were the billionaire owner of Vale International six months into the affair. He told her that once he divorced you, he’d get half your money, and they’d get married.”
I felt the anger rise again, hot and sharp. “So she wasn’t the innocent victim she pretended to be. She knew I was married. She knew I was pregnant with twins. And she still went after my husband, still helped him steal my money, still thought she’d get to be the next Mrs. Vale.”
“Exactly. We also found out she’s been in contact with a talent agent in LA. She was planning to sell the story of the affair to a reality TV production company. The TikTok video? It was just the first step. She wanted to build a brand as ‘the other woman who got screwed over by the billionaire.’”
I stood, walking to the window. The sun was high in the sky, shining down on the city I owned. Below, people were going about their days, completely unaware of the drama playing out in the skyscrapers above them.
“Tell Brianna I want to meet her,” I said. “Tomorrow morning. At the penthouse. No lawyers, no cameras, no agents. Just her and me. If she agrees, we’ll talk about the trust. If she doesn’t… we leak everything we have on her. The text messages where she jokes about me being ‘stupid enough to trust Grant.’ The emails where she plans the reality show. The bank records showing she knew exactly where the consulting money was coming from. She wants to be famous? We’ll make her famous. As the most hated woman in America.”
Marcus smiled. “I’ll call her. She’ll agree. She’s not stupid. She knows she has no leverage.”
He left, and I was alone again. I pulled out my phone, opening the photo album to the first picture I’d taken of my sons, just hours after they were born. They were so small, so fragile, so perfect.
May you like
Everything I do, I thought, looking at their faces, I do for you. So you never have to feel what I felt last night. So you never have to doubt that you are loved, that you are wanted, that you are enough.
Downstairs, the city kept moving. But up here, at the top of the world, I was just getting started.
