17. Jillian
— ? —
Jillian
The thing about coming home after a disaster was that everything looked exactly the same, even when nothing was.
Harper’s apartment still smelled like the bergamot candle I’d left burning too long before the trip. The stack of mail on the counter had grown into a small paper mountain. The divorce papers still sat in their manila folder on the desk, unsigned, waiting.
But I was different.
I’d spent three days back in the city, catching up on sleep, ignoring calls, and systematically going through every photo on my phone from the past year. Looking for patterns I’d missed. Finding them everywhere.
When Trevor texted asking if we could talk, really talk, not whatever careful circling we’d been doing, I told him to come over.
He arrived with coffee and a thing I hadn’t expected: his phone.
“Before we start,” he said, standing in my doorway like he wasn’t sure he was allowed inside, “I need to show you something. And you’re going to be angry.”
“I’m already angry. Come in.”
He sat on my couch, the same couch where we’d had our last real fight, before everything went silent, and unlocked his phone. “I went back through my messages with Chloe. All of them. From the past year.”
“Okay.”
“Jillian.” He looked up at me, and there was a rawness in his expression. “She was lying. About everything. And I have proof.”
He handed me the phone.
The first screenshot was from October, back when we were still fighting to save a marriage neither of us knew was already under siege.
Chloe’s message read: Jillian mentioned she doesn’t mind you working late at the estate.
She said she actually prefers the space.
Maybe you two just need different things?
I remembered that week. I’d cried in the bathroom three nights in a row because he never came home before midnight.
“I never said that,” I said quietly.
“I know that now. Keep reading.”
The next one was from the Hartford benefit. Chloe: Oh, I thought Jillian knew you invited me? She seemed fine with it when I mentioned it to her at the club last week. I hope I didn’t cause any confusion!
I hadn’t seen Chloe at the club. I hadn’t been to the club in months.
“Trevor.”
“There’s more.”
The third message made me go cold.
From Chloe, dated three weeks before our anniversary: The gala committee is finalizing the opening song. I suggested ‘The Very Thought of You,’ it’s such a classic, and it would set the perfect tone. What do you think?
Our song.
She’d requested our song for the gala where she’d planned to have me watch her dance with my husband.
“She knew,” I said. My voice came out steady, which surprised me. “She knew that was our wedding song.”
“She was at our wedding.”
“She requested it on purpose. To, what, rub it in? Make me watch?”
“To break you.” Trevor took the phone back gently. “To make you think I’d chosen her. Publicly. Deliberately. With the song we danced to at our wedding playing while you watched.”
I sat back.
The anger I expected didn’t come. What came instead was a colder, cleaner feeling. The clarity of finally seeing the full picture.
“Since when?” I asked. “How far back does this go?”
“At least a year. Probably longer. I found messages going back to last summer, small things at first. Mentioning that you’d said a thing you never said.
Suggesting that you’d seemed upset about a matter I knew nothing about.
Building this, this narrative that we were already falling apart, and she was just there to help me see it. ”
“And you believed her.”
“I believed her because I was already scared.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Because things were hard, and she made it seem like you were pulling away, and I…” He stopped. “I’m not making excuses. I should have asked you. I should have talked to you instead of talking to her.”
“Yes. You should have.”
“I know.”
We sat in silence for a moment. The coffee he’d brought went cold between us.
“Your mother knew too,” I finally said. “Some of it.”
“She’s downstairs.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“She asked if she could come. I told her she could wait in the car until you decided.” He met my eyes. “You can say no. I’ll send her home.”
Margot Anderson, waiting in a car outside my building. Waiting for permission.
Not long ago, I would have said no without hesitation.
But back then, I didn’t know what I knew now.
“Send her up.”
***
Margot looked older than she had at the wedding.
Smaller, somehow, in a navy dress that probably cost more than my rent.
She stood in my doorway the same way Trevor had, uncertain, uncomfortable, nothing like the woman who’d once looked at me across a dinner table and said I hope you know what you’re getting into.
“Jillian.” Her voice was formal. Careful. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“Sit down, Margot.”
She sat in the chair across from the couch. Trevor stayed where he was, a buffer between us.
“I won’t waste your time with explanations,” Margot said. “Chloe lied to me. For months. She told me things about you that I chose to believe, and I was wrong to believe them.”
“What things?”
Margot’s jaw tightened. “That you were careless with the Foundation’s reputation. That you’d been dismissive of the family’s legacy. That you…” She stopped, then forced herself to continue. “That you’d told her you married Trevor for his name, not for him.”
The audacity of it almost made me laugh.
“And you believed that.”
“I wanted to believe her.” Margot’s voice cracked slightly. “Because it was easier than admitting I’d been wrong about you.”
The words hung in the air.
I let them.
“I spent two years trying to earn your approval,” I said quietly.
“I gave up my career because I thought it would help. I smiled through every criticism, every cold shoulder, every moment you made me feel like I’d never be good enough.
And the whole time, you were listening to a woman who was actively trying to destroy my marriage. ”
“Yes.”
“Because it was easier.”
“Yes.”
I could have destroyed her with that. Could have let every moment of hurt pour out, weaponized into a blade.
Instead, I just nodded.
“I hear you,” I said. “I’m not ready to forgive you. But I hear you.”
Margot’s eyes shone. She blinked rapidly, composing herself. “That’s more than I deserve.”
“Probably.” I looked at Trevor. “The gala is in two weeks.”
“I want to make this right,” he said. “Publicly. I want people to know what she did.”
“No.”
“Jillian…”
“I’m not interested in a spectacle.” I stood, moving to the window, looking out at the city that had felt so suffocating for months and now just felt like home. “I’m not interested in public reckoning or dramatic reveals. I just want her gone.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
I turned back to face them both. “The gala hostess is Beverly Ashworth. Old guard, impeccable reputation, despises being made a fool of.”
Trevor’s eyes narrowed. “You want to tell Beverly?”
“I want to arm Beverly. Quietly. I hand her the screenshots, the messages, the proof, and I tell her exactly what Chloe did. Then we let Chloe attend.”
“Why would we let her attend?”
“Because she thinks she’s won.” I smiled, and it didn’t feel forced. “She thinks she outsmarted everyone. Let her walk in confident. Let her assume she has room to maneuver. And when she tries something, and she will try something, the counter is already sitting in trusted hands.”
Margot looked at me with an expression that might have been respect. “You’ve thought this through.”
“I’ve had time.”
***
Harper showed up that evening with wine and opinions.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, sprawled across my couch while I sorted through boxes I’d pulled from storage. “Chloe spent a year poisoning your marriage, Margot finally admitted she was wrong, and your master plan is to… do nothing?”
“Not nothing. Strategic patience.”
“You sound like a Bond villain.”
“Thank you.”
She watched me dig through another box. “What are you looking for?”
“My old portfolio. The event planning stuff.” I pulled out a leather binder, dust coating its surface. “Beverly asked if I’d help coordinate the gala.”
Harper sat up. “Wait, seriously?”
“Apparently my ‘attention to detail’ left an impression at the Whitmore benefit last year.” I opened the binder, flipping through photos of events I’d organized before I’d given it all up. “She called yesterday. Said they lost their coordinator and she remembered my work.”
“Jill.” Harper’s voice softened. “That’s amazing.”
“It’s just consulting.”
“It’s you, doing what you love, at the exact event where your enemy is planning her big move.” She grinned. “That’s not consulting. That’s poetry.”
I laughed, a real laugh, the first one in days. “I missed this.”
“Missed what?”
“Feeling like myself.”
Harper raised her wine glass. “Welcome back.”
***
I delivered the screenshots to Beverly Ashworth the next morning.
She received me in her study, all mahogany and old money, walls lined with photos of galas past. She listened without interrupting as I explained what Chloe had done. Then she looked at the evidence for a long moment.
“I introduced her to three board members last month,” Beverly finally said. “Sponsored her for the winter committee.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Her eyes were ice. “I don’t enjoy being made a fool of, Jillian. Thank you for bringing this to me.”
“If she tries anything at the gala…”
“She won’t succeed.” Beverly tucked the screenshots into her desk drawer. “Consider it handled.”
***
The call came two days later.
Unknown number. I almost let it go to voicemail. Then instinct told me to answer.
“Jillian.” Chloe’s voice was honey and poison. “I heard you’re helping with the gala. How sweet.”
“Chloe. Wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
“I just wanted you to know, I’ll be attending. Trevor may have confused loyalties right now, but these things have a way of sorting themselves out.”
“I’m sure they do.”
“I’m bringing a few things people should see.” Her voice hardened beneath the sweetness. “Photos. Correspondence. A story about a woman who was never quite stable, who drove her husband away with her jealousy and paranoia. Who made up lies about an innocent family friend to cover her own failures.”
I smiled.
I’d guessed she would try exactly this. Counted on it, actually.
“Can’t wait,” I said.
And hung up.