I had barely sat down at the party when my husband’s new assistant sl*pped me across the face and hissed, “You have no manners!”
My husband’s assistant sl*pped me at a charity gala and told me I had no manners, that the seat was reserved.
It was reserved. For me. I’d paid for the table, the gala supported my mother’s foundation, and the money that saved my husband’s company eleven months earlier had come with a piece of paper he never read.
PART 1
I had barely sat down at the charity gala when my husband’s new assistant sl*pped me across the face.
The sound cracked through the ballroom louder than the string quartet.
For one stunned second, nobody moved.
Crystal glasses froze halfway to painted lips.
Men in tuxedos turned from the auction stage.
Women in designer gowns stopped whispering.
And my husband, Desmond Kincaid, went so pale I almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
The woman standing in front of me was Bianca Roth, his new executive assistant.
Twenty-six, glossy black hair, red dress, sharp smile.
I had seen her name in emails, on travel schedules, and once on a hotel receipt Desmond claimed was “a booking error.”
I had never met her in person until that night.
She leaned over me, eyes blazing with false confidence.
“You have no manners,” she snapped.
“That seat is reserved.”
I touched my cheek.
It was burning.
I looked at the name card beside my plate.
Marguerite Kincaid.
My name.
The table was not just reserved for me.
I had paid for it.
Eleven thousand dollars, like every year, out of an account Desmond had never had access to.
Desmond rushed toward us, his mouth opening and closing like he had forgotten English.
“Bianca — ”
She pointed at me without looking away.
“This woman sat at your table like she owns the place.”
A few people gasped.
I slowly stood.
I was not tall, but the silence made me feel ten feet high.
Bianca lifted her chin, expecting me to apologize, move, disappear — whatever Desmond had clearly taught her wives were supposed to do.
So I sl*pped her back.
Not hard enough to hurt her badly.
Just enough to return the insult in the language she had chosen.
I am fifty-one years old and I had never str*ck another human being in my life, and I want to be honest that it did not feel good.
It felt like paying a bill.
Her hand flew to her face.
“How dare you!”
I turned to Desmond.
“Tell her who I am.”
His throat moved.
Bianca looked confused.
“Desmond?”
I stepped closer to him.
“Tell your assistant whose seat this is.
Tell her whose foundation this gala supports.
Tell her whose money saved your company last year.”
Desmond’s face drained completely.
The chairman of the charity board, Mr. Thorne, approached with security behind him.
“Mrs. Kincaid, is everything all right?”
Bianca’s eyes widened.
She looked at Mr. Thorne — who had called me Mrs. Kincaid, and who had, I saw her calculate, not looked at Desmond once.
Then she looked up at the banner above the stage.
THE ODESSA WELLS FOUNDATION — A STRONGER TOMORROW.
Odessa Wells.
My mother.
The woman whose name was on the room.
And then Bianca looked at Desmond — who had told her, I would learn later, in a deposition, under oath, that I was his ex-wife, that I was unstable, and that if I turned up I should be “removed before she makes a scene.”
I looked at my husband and said softly, “Now you panic?”
