The next instant, Guy shoved me to the ground. Pain tore through my lower spine like a blade.

He cradled Mabel in his arms as though she were the most precious thing in the world. The look he turned on me was the one you'd give a piece of trash.

I lay sprawled on the floor. And then, slowly, I laughed.

Ten years.

I had loved this man for ten years.

The first time he looked at me like that was the day Mabel and her mother walked through our door.

The first time he raised a hand to me was the day Mabel ran to him crying that I'd bullied her.

The first time he abandoned me without a second thought was the day Mabel screamed for help.

Again and again and again. He had never once chosen me.

It was his indulgence that let Mabel destroy everything I ever loved.

I pulled myself upright. My gaze locked onto Mabel, cold as a blade, and I raised my voice so every guest in the room could hear.

"Mabel, all that money Guy gave you, you funneled it straight into Max Fox's accounts. What's going on between you two? Some kind of affair?"

Guilt flickered across Mabel's face. She blurted out in a panic, "Don't make things up! The only man I care about is Guy!"

I let out a sharp, scornful laugh and turned to face the crowd. "You all heard that. My adopted sister just confessed she's in love with her brother-in-law."

Whispers ignited through the room like wildfire. Fingers pointed at Mabel.

"The Fox family's second daughter looks so sweet and innocent. Who knew she'd go after her own sister's husband?"

"Wait, hasn't the older sister even divorced Guy yet? Doesn't that make Mabel the other woman?"

I watched Mabel throw herself into Guy's arms, tears streaming prettily down her cheeks, and my stomach turned.

Guy soothed the woman clinging to him, then walked to the center of the banquet hall. He picked up a microphone, gazed at Mabel with eyes full of adoration, and spoke for every person in the room to hear.

"The only woman who will ever be my wife is Mabel. Amber Fox was always the interloper."

Just like that, the crowd's judgment swiveled onto me.

I watched the two of them with frozen eyes. Nothing stirred inside me anymore.

But when I heard the word interloper, I still smiled.

Interloper?

I met you when I was eighteen. I married you when I was twenty-two. Was I intruding on your little underground affair?