3. Jade #2
But he doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t need to know that when I close my eyes, I’m not thinking about him at all - I’m thinking about the corner office I’ll have when I’m Mrs. Donald Castillo.
The black AmEx. The summer house in the Hamptons.
The way everyone will look at me and see someone, instead of just Jade’s pretty sister, Jade’s plus-one, Jade’s shadow.
Always Jade.
Not anymore.
Donald crawls onto the bed, and I let him press me into the mattress, let him kiss my neck while I stare at the ceiling and calculate my next move.
“I’ve been thinking,” I murmur against his ear, trailing my fingers down his spine. “About us.”
“Mmm.” He’s distracted, his mouth moving lower. “What about us?”
“About our future.” I arch into him just enough to keep his attention, then pull back, the push and pull I’ve perfected over months of this dance. “I want to be with you, Donald. Really be with you. Not just stolen afternoons and secret weekends.”
He pauses. Looks up at me. “Vivian...”
“I know it’s complicated.” I cup his face in my hands, letting my eyes fill with perfectly calibrated vulnerability. “I know you have obligations. But I love you. And I can’t keep pretending that being your secret is enough.”
The words taste like copper in my mouth. Love. What a useless, childish concept. Love is what Jade had - blind, trusting, look-where-it-got-her love. I prefer something more reliable.
Power.
Donald’s expression shifts. Guilt, desire, conflict - I watch them flicker across his face like channels changing on a television. He’s thinking about Jade. About the baby. About the complications.
Time to tip the scales.
“Maybe you’re right,” I sigh, looking away. “Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe I should just... let you go back to her. To your wife.”
I say the word like it’s something rotten. Something beneath us both.
“Vivian-”
“No, it’s fine.” I sit up, letting the sheet pool around my waist, letting him see what he’ll lose. “She’s your wife. She’s having your baby. I’m just... I’m just the other woman, right? That’s all I’ll ever be.”
“That’s not-” He reaches for me, desperate now. So easy. “That’s not what I want. You know that’s not what I want.”
“Then what do you want, Donald?” I turn to face him, letting tears gather in my eyes, the same tears I cried at my grandmother’s funeral, at my college graduation, at every moment I needed someone to believe I was feeling something real.
“Because I can’t keep waiting forever. I can’t keep loving you from the shadows while she gets the life that should be mine. ”
Ours, I should have said. But it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t notice the slip.
“I’ll talk to her.” The words tumble out of him, rushed and reckless. “After the baby comes, I’ll ask for a divorce. I’ll-”
“After the baby?” I pull away, wrapping my arms around myself. “That’s months away, Donald. Months of lying. Months of watching you go to her every night while I sleep alone in my apartment wondering if you’ve changed your mind.”
“I haven’t. I won’t.”
“How can I believe that?” A single tear slides down my cheek. Oscar-worthy, if I do say so myself. “How can I trust anything when she’s still there, in your house, in your life, carrying your child? She has everything, Donald. And I have nothing.”
He crumbles. I watch it happen, the way his resolve dissolves like sugar in water, the way his guilt transforms into determination. He pulls me into his arms, holds me against his chest, strokes my hair like I’m something precious.
“You have me,” he murmurs. “You’ll always have me. I’ll figure this out, Vivian. I promise. I’ll find a way.”
Yes, I think, letting him hold me while I smile into his shoulder. You will.
But he won’t have to figure out anything. I’ve already done it for him.
***
Later, after another round that leaves him boneless and pliable, I decide it’s time.
“Donald.” I trace patterns on his chest, my voice carefully hesitant. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something I probably should have told you weeks ago.”
He tenses beneath me. “What is it?”
“It’s about Jade.”
“What about her?”
I sit up slowly, pulling my expression into something pained. Reluctant. Like the words are being dragged out of me against my will.
“I didn’t want to say anything. She’s my sister. And I thought... I thought there had to be an explanation. Some mistake.” I shake my head, let my voice tremble. “But I can’t keep protecting her. Not when she’s doing this to you.”
Donald sits up, suddenly alert. “Doing what? What are you talking about?”
I reach for my phone. My hands shake, not from nerves, but from the effort of containing my excitement. This is it. The moment I’ve been building toward for months.
“I found something. In her accounts.” I pull up the file I’ve prepared, the fake bank statements, the forged emails, the paper trail I’ve been constructing piece by piece since before Jade even knew I was sleeping with her husband.
“I wasn’t snooping, I swear. She asked me to help her with something financial, and I noticed some... irregularities.”
Donald takes the phone. Scrolls through the documents. I watch his face, the confusion first, then the disbelief, then the slow, satisfying dawn of betrayal.
“She’s been transferring money? To offshore accounts?”
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Over the past six months.” I bite my lip, the picture of reluctant sisterly concern. “I didn’t want to believe it either. But look at the signatures. Look at the emails. It’s all there, Donald.”
“This doesn’t make sense.” But his voice has changed. There’s an edge to it now - the sharp, wounded tone of a man whose pride has been cut. “Why would she-”
“There’s more.”
I open Margot’s photos. Let him see his wife, round with his child, holding hands with his brother across a café table. Let him see the intimacy in their posture, the longing in Damian’s eyes, the way Jade leans toward him like he’s the only solid ground in her world.
Donald’s face goes white. Then red.
“When were these taken?”
“Today. But they’ve been meeting for weeks.” I move closer, rest my hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I know how much you loved her. But she’s been planning something with Damian. The money, the secret meetings... I think they’re going to try to take everything from you.”
“That bitch.”
The word is vicious. Ugly. And I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
There it is.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” I whisper, letting fresh tears spill down my cheeks. “She’s my sister. My family. But I couldn’t let her hurt you. I couldn’t watch her destroy you.”
Donald pulls me into his arms, and I bury my face against his chest, hiding my expression.
“You did the right thing.” His voice is rough with rage. “I’m calling my lawyers. And the police.”
“Are you sure? I mean, she’s still your wife. And the baby-”
“The baby might not even be mine.” The words come out bitter, poisonous. “Who knows what she’s been doing behind my back? With my own brother?”
Oh, this is even better than I planned.
“What are you going to do?” I look up at him with wide, worried eyes.
“I’m going to destroy her.” He’s already reaching for his phone, his jaw set with the self-righteous fury of a man who’s completely forgotten his own sins. “She’s not getting a dime. She’s not getting the baby. She’s not getting anything.”
“I’ll support you.” I press a kiss to his chest. “Whatever you need. I’m here.”
“I know.” He cups my face, looks into my eyes with something he probably thinks is love. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Vivian. You’re the only person I can trust.”
The only person you can trust.