Chapter 25
Sarah’s detached, dreamlike state could not last forever. At some point, it had to puncture, like an old, sad balloon floating above the floor, trying to prove a point but knowing that its time was almost up.
That moment happened the next day, when Sarah went home after a restless night with her girlfriend.
Luca spent most of her morning on her phone with her divorce lawyer, arguing over whether it was worth pursuing custody now that she was associated with someone like Sarah. The insinuation And breaking up with her is not an option hung over everyone’s heads.
Sarah went home feeling confident about her girlfriend and the ability for all of this to blow over soon. Luca’s custody battle had grown more difficult, but that said more about Jill’s ethics than hers, honestly.
“I don’t care what you’ve done in the past,” Luca told her the night before. “You’re not a bad person. I love you. What else is there?”
Sarah arrived home on the verge of a meltdown.
Not that she knew it yet. She wouldn’t know until much later, when everything was in full swing, and she made brash, unfortunate decisions sure to ruin her life.
The first thing she saw was her mother in the midst of meeting Carly for the…
what? Second? Third time? Nigel had taken her home to meet the folks once already, but Sarah didn’t think they had run into each other since then.
Not until now, when everyone silently acknowledged that the only reason Elizabeth was in town was so she could watch over her delinquent daughter.
When Sarah entered, it was to an interrupted silence that insinuated she was the current topic of the ceased conversation.
“Don’t mind me,” she said, bypassing the living room and heading straight to her own.
Maybe they stared at her because she wore the red wig again.
It was the only way to sneak by the paparazzi looking for a quick, sexy story outside of her building.
Fucking crows. She could see them from her bedroom window.
That meant they could probably see her from a building across the street if they were brazen enough to go that route.
They were, weren’t they?
She closed her curtains and removed her wig. A message lit up on her phone. She assumed it was from Luca, or perhaps one of her employers asking for an off-the-record favor.
It was neither.
They were alerts. Ones she set to her name a long time ago, when she was job hunting with Nigel right out of college and wanting to make sure her potential employers didn’t see anything unsavory.
(Well, that was out the window now.) She had seen one or two over the past couple of days as her name came up in some lesser articles, but now?
Over two-thousand hits dumped into her profile.
“WHO IS SARAH CLAYBORN?” the first headline read. “EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT’S SORDID PAST REVEALED.”
“THIS WOMAN HAS SCREWED MORE MILLIONAIRES THAN YOU CAN NAME.”
“OUR BODY EXPERT WEIGHS IN ON THAT VIDEO – FINAL VERDICT? EH, COULD BE BETTER.”
“SAPPHIC BILLIONAIRE HOTTIE LUCA BLACKBOURNE REPORTEDLY DATING.”
“SEX AND DEPRAVITY PLAGUE THE UPPER ELITE. TELL US SOMETHING WE DON’T KNOW.”
Every article had Sarah’s full name and pictures of her outside of her Angel persona.
Many of the so-called reporters were lazy enough to simply use the PI photos from the getaway.
A few, however, were slick enough to find photos of her from public records on friends’ social media accounts.
Who knew Sarah had gone on that many outings over the years?
They didn’t bother her. Not at first. Turn off the phone and walk away.
The internet would be a bigger hellhole than usual for the foreseeable future.
Like Sarah kept telling herself, it would all blow over as soon as another scandal came along.
She practically worked in this field when it came to keeping her employers’ images clean.
If the press found out that the Moreaus still practiced (even doctor-approved) BDSM while Alicia was pregnant…
Sarah made the grave mistake of answering the door an hour later, however.
If anyone else had answered it, perhaps this all could have been avoided.
Nigel would have quietly shut the door in the woman’s face, and Elizabeth would have slammed it with a few choice words that were sure to echo in the hallway.
Either way, Sarah would not have had to deal with the bullshit that soon came.
“Can I—”
A harsh hand landed on Sarah’s cheek.
“You fucking whore!”
Sarah was too shocked to respond right away. It took Nigel leaping up from the couch to keep the woman in the fur coat and $500 root touch-up from clobbering Sarah on the head with French-tipped fists.
“I had to look you in the face, you depraved bitch!” The woman was no match for Nigel, who promptly picked her up and removed her from their entryway.
Elizabeth was on the phone with the police, a bottle of pepper spray in her hand.
For God’s sake, Mum! The last thing this family needed was chemicals flying in the house!
“My God-damned husband! You fucked my husband, slut!”
Sarah looked into the woman’s crazed face before Nigel managed to lock the door in front of her. Words that Sarah dared not try to remember echoed through the door. What a nasty person… So happened that the nasty person thought she was the nasty one.
“Don’t listen to that tosh.” Elizabeth directed her daughter toward the living room, where Carly still sat on the couch, speechless. “What a loon.”
Sarah sat in the large chair by the TV. Elizabeth patted her shoulder and went into the kitchen to get more tea, the one thing she assured was the best medicine on the planet.
Nigel stayed by the front door in case that woman returned or brought some friends with her.
She won’t. She came here in a crazy moment of passion.
Once the woman realized what she had done, she would skedaddle, hopefully before the police arrived.
Sarah didn’t want her to go to jail, even if she had hit someone.
“I’m sorry,” Carly said from the couch.
“I’m fine.” Sarah rubbed the tender spot where the woman had slapped her.
“Been through worse.” She got up and went back to her room before anyone else could fuss over her.
She never saw the police – only heard her brother dismissing them when they arrived.
Thank you. He knew she didn’t want to speak with them about something like that.
She was right, wasn’t she? Sarah sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her pointed toes. I probably did sleep with her husband.
When Sarah gave over to her persona, all she cared about was making new friends.
Angel didn’t ask personal questions. For fuck’s sake, she didn’t remember most of the names of the people she hooked up with over the past several months.
Once Angel was involved, she stopped caring about anything other than having a decent time.
Still… that meant Sarah was complicit, didn’t it?
Those wives, girlfriends, and sometimes husbands didn’t give a fuck if Sarah didn’t know about her partners’ married lives.
All they saw was the siren who lured their darlings away with her magical, sex-craved pussy.
How many divorces had that video initiated?
To think, I had been so angry at Luca when I thought she was married and screwing around on the side. I’m a hypocrite.
She picked up her phone for the first time in hours.
“THE PSYCHOLOGY OF A WANTON WOMAN.”
She put down her phone again.
Something was lodged deep in her throat. She couldn’t breathe.
That wasn’t an angel dwelling inside of her. That was a demon hellbent on ruining everyone’s lives – including Sarah’s, apparently.
Another sleepless night claimed her. For two nights in a row, she didn’t sleep.
Too bad for Elizabeth, who insisted on sleeping with her daughter during her stay. That meant Mrs. Clayborn didn’t get much sleep, either, for her daughter tossed and turned for half the night before finally getting up and sprawling across the couch, hoping late-night movies would put her to sleep.
Her mind was consumed with toxic thoughts.
You’re a disgusting whore. You’re nothing but trouble.
How many people have you slept with since that moment?
What did you think it was going to do? Heal you?
Make you feel stronger? More empowered? Put the choices in your hands!
Ha! Yeah, fucking right. You’re a slut looking for excuses to ruin lives.
Where’s your accountability, huh? Where was it back then?
Where was it… back then?
It was while looking at the back of the couch, curled up in a fetal position with a thin blanket draped across her, that Sarah finally cracked.
This was the thought she had when Angel was born. Her nights playing Angel were supposed to save her from these awful thoughts.
You’re the reason your baby died.
Wasn’t she, though? Sarah had a bad feeling when she went to see Russell that fateful night. Hadn’t she told him about the baby the last time they met? Why would he invite her over to a previously undisclosed location for a celebration… so late at night?
Sarah knew he wasn’t a kind man. He was a deliberate man, though.
Russell Moreau didn’t waste a single thought or motion on anything – or anyone – that didn’t matter.
He would never flippantly invite Sarah over unless he had a plan.
Usually, that plan was getting into her pants.
I thought we would celebrate the old-fashioned way.