My Husband Sent His Best Friend to Trap Me

"Men are pathetic."

I brushed a lock of dark chestnut hair away from my cheekbone. The crisp glow of the Hollywood bulbs illuminated my reflection in the vanity mirror.

No tears stained my cheeks. The initial agony of knowing my husband was sleeping with Scarlett had already burned through my system, leaving nothing but cold, hardened ash.

Julian was filthy.

The mere thought of his hands touching another woman, trailing down her skin, pulling her close, and then attempting to touch me made my stomach churn with intense nausea. I gripped the edge of the vanity, my knuckles turning white against the polished wood.

He will never cross the threshold of my bedroom again, I promised myself.

He thought he was the master puppeteer, orchestrating a tragedy where I played the disgraced, weeping victim. He wanted an affair? He wanted to drag my name through the mud to protect his fortune?

I would give him an illusion so grand it would bankrupt him.

I reached for my private laptop, flipping the lid open. The screen glowed, demanding a password. My fingers flew across the keys, bypassing the military-grade encryption I had installed months ago after finding the first suspicious credit card statement.

I grabbed my phone and dialed a number I had memorized but never hoped to use.

"It's midnight, Elena," Arthur Penhaligon answered. Manhattan's top divorce litigator sounded wide awake.

"Wake up, Arthur. We have a war to win."

"Did Julian finally slip up?"

"He did more than slip up. He built me a guillotine."

"Explain."

"He's sleeping with Scarlett."

"His old flame?" The line crackled with Arthur's shifting weight. "The one from the Hamptons?"

"The very same. But infidelity isn't his