PART 1
“My son is getting married today to a real woman. You don’t belong in this house anymore,” my mother-in-law said as she sl:amm:ed the gate in my face.
I had just stepped out of a taxi in front of the mansion in Coral Gables where I had lived for the past eight years. I was dragging a silver suitcase, exhausted after a seventeen-hour trip from San Antonio, and I was still holding the message Spencer had sent me that morning:
“I miss you. Travel safely. We’ll have dinner together tonight.”
But there was no dinner waiting for me behind the gate.
A huge white tent covered the garden. Rose arrangements lined the walkways. A mariachi band was tuning its instruments, and more than a hundred guests were raising their glasses beneath crystal chandeliers.
At the entrance stood a sign that read:
“Spencer & Penelope. Forever.”
Spencer was my husband.
My knees nearly gave out, but I didn’t cry.
I looked at Evelyn, my mother-in-law, dressed in a burgundy gown, wearing gold bracelets, and smiling with the same expression she had used so many times while asking me for money.
“Where’s Spencer?”
“Don’t make a scene, Laura. He’s already made his choice. Penelope is young, well-educated, comes from a good family, and she’s pregnant. At last I’m going to have the grandchild you could never give me.”
Her words reopened a wound she knew all too well.
Eight years earlier, Spencer had been seriously in:jured in a highway accident on the Key West highway. I sold the apartment my parents had left me to pay for his surgeries, rehabilitation, and Evelyn’s debts. For months I slept in a hospital chair. One night, while running to get a doctor because Spencer couldn’t breathe, I fell down a flight of stairs.
I lost the baby I was carrying, and the complications left me with almost no chance of ever becoming pregnant again.
Spencer had sworn that no one would ever humiliate me because of that.
Now his own mother was using my loss to throw me out of my own home.
Several relatives came outside after hearing the shouting. Some of them had lived for years on loans I had given them.
Even so, they began whispering that I was a cold wife, obsessed with work, incapable of taking care of a successful man.
Then Spencer appeared.
He was wearing an ivory-colored suit with a red rose pinned to his lapel.
The smile vanished from his face the moment he saw me.
“Laura… I thought you weren’t coming back until next week.”
“So that’s why you moved the wedding up?”
He lowered his voice.
“We’ll talk later. Penelope can invest millions in my construction company. Her father has connections all over the country. You never understood what a CEO really needs.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
Spencer believed he had built his company by himself.
He had no idea that every major contract, every line of credit, and even the house where he was celebrating his betrayal existed because of my decisions.
For years I had kept secret that I was the Chairwoman of the Board of Apex Holdings to protect his pride.
I took out my phone.
“Mr. Miller, cancel immediately every private service Apex Holdings provides to this property. The backup power system, the water cistern, the industrial refrigeration, and the security contract. Then activate the property recovery clause.”
Evelyn burst into laughter.
Ten minutes later, the music stopped.
The air conditioning shut down.
The catering staff realized there was no water left in the cistern.
The industrial refrigerators lost power.
Under the blazing July heat, guests began leaving the tent as the bride’s makeup melted and the seafood spoiled.
Spencer ran toward me, drenched in sweat.
“What did you do?”
I slipped my phone back into my bag and lifted my suitcase.
“I simply took back what had always been mine.”
As the mariachi band packed up without playing a single song, I realized that the wedding was only the beginning.
I had no idea what was about to happen next…
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