17. Layla
— ? —
Layla
Stefan had been on the phone all day.
I watched him pace the length of my living room, his voice cold and controlled, speaking to people I didn’t recognize.
Lawyers. Accountants. Names that meant nothing to me but clearly meant everything to him.
He moved like a caged animal, all coiled tension and barely contained fury, and I stayed on the couch with my coffee and let him work.
The week in Chicago had collapsed into a single evening. Everything he’d planned to do up there, he’d done from my couch instead - lawyers, forensics, courthouse searches - until the only piece left was the one that required his body in a ballroom.
“I need everything pulled by six,” he said into the phone. “The original audio file. The forensic analysis. All of it.”
A pause while someone responded.
“I don’t care if it’s difficult. Make it happen.”
He hung up and immediately dialed another number. His jaw was a hard line, his knuckles white around the phone. There was a fury in his eyes I’d never seen before, something beyond anger, something that made me shiver.
This was the man his mother had made. The one who could be ruthless when someone threatened what he loved.
I was glad I wasn’t Stella today.
“The signature comparison is ready,” he said to whoever answered.
Another pause.
“Good. And the photo?”
I didn’t hear the response, but Stefan’s expression flickered. Just for a moment, the fury gave way to pain.
“Send it to the same drive. I want everything in one place.”
He hung up and turned to me. Some of the tension drained from his shoulders when he met my eyes, but not all of it. Not nearly all of it.
“It’s almost time.” He checked his watch. “The jet leaves for Chicago in an hour.”
I set down my coffee and stood up.
“I’m coming with you.”
Stefan went still. “Lay...”
“Don’t.” I walked toward him, my bare feet silent on the hardwood. “Don’t try to talk me out of this.”
“You don’t have to do this.” His hands came up to cup my face, his thumbs tracing my cheekbones. “I can handle my mother on my own. You don’t need to be there.”
“Yes I do.”
My voice was steel. I heard it and I didn’t recognize myself, this woman who had spent four years hiding and was finally done.
“I spent four years running from that woman,” I said.
“I spent years looking over my shoulder. Jumping at shadows. Building walls around myself and my daughter because I was terrified she’d find us.
” I met his eyes and held them. “I’m done running, Stefan.
I want to look her in the face when everything falls apart. ”
He searched my expression for a long moment. Looking for doubt. Looking for fear.
“Okay.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “Okay. We do this together.”
“Together,” I agreed.
He kissed me once, quick and fierce, and then pulled away.
“One hour. Get ready.”
I took my time.
Pippa had picked up Cece an hour ago, promising ice cream and movies and all the things aunts were supposed to provide. My daughter had been beside herself with excitement, bouncing out the door without a backward glance, already chattering about which princess movie they should watch first.
So I had the apartment to myself. I had time.
I stood in front of my closet and looked at my options. Black would be appropriate. Professional. Safe. I reached for a black dress and then stopped, my hand hovering in the air.
No.
Not safe. Not tonight.
I pushed aside the black and the navy and the charcoal until I found it. The red dress. I’d bought it two years ago for a client event and then chickened out at the last minute, shoving it to the back of my closet where it had hung ever since.
I pulled it out and held it up against my body.
It was obscene. That was the only word for it. Red silk that would cling to every curve, a neckline that plunged just low enough to be dangerous, a hem that hit mid-thigh. The kind of dress that made men walk into walls and women reach for their husbands’ arms.
Perfect.
I showered and dried my hair, letting it fall in loose waves around my shoulders. I did my makeup slowly, deliberately. Smoky eyes that made the brown look almost black. Cheekbones highlighted until they could cut glass.
And my lips.
I uncapped the lipstick and twisted it up. Deep red. Blood red. The color of vengeance.
I painted my mouth with careful precision, watching myself transform in the mirror. I looked dangerous. I looked like a woman who had nothing left to lose.
I slipped into the dress and zipped it up the side. The silk settled against my skin like water, cool and smooth and sinful. I stepped into heels that added four inches to my height and made my legs look endless.
Then I walked into the living room.
Stefan was standing by the window, checking his phone, his profile sharp against the fading light. He turned when he heard my heels on the floor.
And stopped breathing.
“You’re trying to kill me,” he said.
I smiled. “Maybe.”
He crossed the room in three strides and grabbed my hips, pulling me against him. I could feel exactly what the dress was doing to him. “Jesus Christ, Lay. I’m supposed to concentrate on destroying my mother while you’re wearing this?”
“You’ll manage.” I smoothed my hands over his lapels. “You’re very capable.”
“Not when you look like that.” His mouth found my throat, his teeth scraping against my pulse point. “Every man in that room is going to want you.”
“Good.” I tilted my head back to give him better access. “Let them want.”
“And then I’m going to take you home and make you scream my name.” His breath was hot against my skin. “Just so we’re clear.”
“I’m counting on it.”
He groaned and pulled back, visibly collecting himself. His eyes were still dark, still hungry, but he shoved the want down with visible effort.
“Later,” he promised. “First, we burn my mother’s world to the ground.”
“I can’t wait.”
***
The crowd was a who’s who of Chicago society. I recognized faces from Stefan’s and my wedding, from the parties I’d attended as his wife, from the photographs in magazines I’d flipped through over the years.
And in the center of it all stood Stella Graham.
She looked untouchable.
She wouldn’t for long.
Stefan’s hand tightened on my lower back. I felt the tension radiating off him, the fury he was barely keeping leashed.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
We walked into the room together.
Heads turned. Of course they did. Stefan Graham with a woman in a red dress, appearing at a party his mother was hosting. The whispers started before we’d taken five steps, rippling outward like stones dropped in water.
Stella saw Stefan first.
Her smile sharpened, the way it always did when she looked at her son. Pride mixed with possession. He was her creation, her legacy, and she’d never let him forget it.
Then her eyes landed on me.
The color drained from her face so fast I thought she might faint. For one glorious second, I watched pure, unfiltered terror flash across her features before she managed to lock it down.
“Stefan.” She recovered with impressive speed, her voice cutting through the hum of conversation. “What is she doing here?”
“Hello, Mother.” Stefan’s voice carried across the room. Designed to be heard. “What a lovely party. I’m sure your guests would love to hear about how you destroyed my marriage.”
Conversations stopped. Heads swiveled. The string quartet stuttered on a note and then fell silent.
“This is hardly appropriate.” Stella’s smile was frozen in place, her eyes darting to the crowd around us. “Perhaps we could discuss whatever this is in private.”
“No.” Stefan stepped forward, and I moved with him. “I think your guests should hear this. They’re your friends, after all. Your peers. The people whose opinions you’ve spent your whole life cultivating.”
“Stefan, I’m warning you-”
“You fabricated a recording.” He said it loud enough for the entire ballroom to hear. “You made my wife believe I called her unfit. You made her believe I wanted her sister.”
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Someone near the bar actually dropped their glass.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Stella’s voice was ice, but I could see her hands trembling at her sides. “This is absurd. You’re making a scene.”
“I’m just getting started.” Stefan pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. “Let me refresh your memory.”
The ballroom speakers crackled to life.
And then I heard it. Stefan’s voice, saying the words that had driven me away four years ago.
The crowd shifted uncomfortably.
“She doesn’t have what it takes.”
More murmurs. “I can’t keep pretending.”
But this time, I listened differently. This time, I heard what I should have heard four years ago. The unnatural pauses between phrases. The slight shifts in tone that didn’t quite match. The way the sentences had been stitched together from different conversations, the seams barely hidden.
“She has no passion. I need someone like Pippa, with drive, you know? Someone who actually has ambition.”
It was obvious now. Painfully obvious. How had I ever believed this was real?
“That recording is a fake,” Stefan said into the stunned silence. “Spliced together from different conversations, edited to say things I never said.”
He went on. “Built from years of dinners you recorded at your own table, Mother - your private little archive of leverage over everyone who ever sat at it. Every word mine. Every sentence yours.” His voice hardened.
“And you didn’t pull Pippa’s name from thin air.
You knew she’d been meeting me for weeks to plan Layla’s anniversary gift.
You built the lie around her, and you sent my wife to my office on the one afternoon you knew she’d find Pippa there. ”
“Stefan, you can’t possibly believe-” Stella started.
“I’m not finished.”
A screen descended from the ceiling at the back of the room. Someone on Stefan’s team had arranged this, I realized. Every detail planned. Every moment choreographed for maximum impact.