Unmasking His Betrayal

Three days after my meeting with Margaret, I was sorting through legal documents when the doorbell rang. I wasn't expecting anyone. Dominic had been conspicuously absent since our confrontation, likely assuming I'd come crawling back once I'd 'calmed down.'

I opened the door to find Gabriella Montgomery standing on my doorstep. In person, without the distance of surveillance photos, the resemblance between us was even more unsettling. I was looking at the original template for my surgically altered face.

"May I come in?" she asked, not waiting for an answer as she brushed past me into the foyer.

My throat tightened. "Dominic isn't here."

"I know." She turned, surveying our home with proprietary interest. "He's with our son at the zoo. I thought it was time you and I had a chat, woman to woman."

The casual way she mentioned their child felt like a deliberate twist of the knife. I folded my arms across my chest. "There's nothing to discuss."

Gabriella laughed, the sound light and musical. "Oh, I think there is. For instance, how does it feel to discover you've been the practice wife all along?"

"Practice wife?"

"That's what Dominic calls you." She moved into the living room, trailing her fingers along the furniture. "The stand-in until he could convince me to come back to him."

Each word landed like a physical blow. I followed her, unwilling to let her see how deeply she'd wounded me. "If you came here to gloat—"

"Not at all. I came to thank you." Her smile was razor-sharp. "For keeping him comfortable while I sorted out my priorities. For funding his lifestyle while I raised our son. For being so... accommodating."

I noticed she was holding my phone, which I'd left on the side table. "Put that down."

"Just admiring your photos." She swiped through my gallery with casual entitlement. "Oh, is this your mother? You have her eyes—well, you did before the surgeries."

My heart stopped. The photo of my mother—the only one I had left after a house fire had destroyed all our family albums years ago. The last tangible connection to my life before I became Kyra.

"Give me my phone." My voice shook.

"It's sweet how you've kept this." Her thumb hovered over the screen. "Such a shame digital files are so... fragile."

Before I could reach her, she pressed delete. Then again. Permanent delete.

"Oops." She set the phone down, her expression one of mock contrition. "My mistake."

The room spun around me as I grabbed my phone, desperately checking my recently deleted folder. Empty. The photo was gone—irretrievably, permanently gone.

"Why?" I whispered, tears blurring my vision. "Why would you do that?"

"Because I can." She adjusted her designer purse on her shoulder. "Because you need to understand your place in this story. You were never the heroine, Kyra. You were just the placeholder."

When Dominic finally returned home that evening, I was still sitting in the dark living room, clutching my phone.

"Gabriella came by today," I said as he switched on the lights.

He froze momentarily before composing his features. "Did she?"

"She deleted the only photo I had of my mother." My voice cracked. "The only one."

Dominic sighed heavily, loosening his tie. "Are we really going to do this tonight? I'm tired."

"My mother's photo, Dominic. The only one I had left."

"What do you want me to do about it?" He poured himself a drink. "It's just a photo."

"Just a—" I stood, disbelief and rage boiling over. "That was all I had left of her! And your... your mistress deleted it deliberately, just to hurt me!"

His expression hardened. "Don't call her that."

"What should I call the woman you've been sleeping with behind my back? The mother of your secret child?"

"You're being hysterical." He downed his drink in one swallow. "Gabriella would never do something like that intentionally."

"She admitted it! She did it right in front of me!"

"Enough!" His voice rose to a shout. "I'm sick of your jealousy, your constant need for attention!"

"Attention?" I stepped closer, tears streaming down my face. "I changed my entire face for you! I gave you millions to save your failing company! I erased myself to become what you wanted!"

The crack of his hand against my cheek echoed in the sudden silence. The sting spread across my skin as we both froze, equally shocked by what had just happened.

Dominic recovered first, his expression shifting from surprise to justification. "You see what you made me do? This is exactly the kind of drama Gabriella would never create."

In that moment, something inside me that had been barely holding together finally broke completely. I touched my burning cheek, looking at this stranger I'd sacrificed everything for.

"I'll be gone by morning," I whispered.