CHAPTER 4 : SMILING THROUGH THE PAIN

The question hung in the air, sharp and dangerous. Evelyn felt it—a blade at her throat. “Were you just a stand-in wife until Damian could run back to his real love?” No one spoke. Not a single laugh or cough. Every eye turned on her. Hundreds, maybe. All of them waiting. Watching. Wanting something. Her heart felt like someone had ripped it out and set it on a pedestal for everyone to poke and examine. She couldn’t look away from Damian. Just one word from him—that’s all she really needed. Say something. Step in. Prove that the years they shared mattered, even a little. Anything. He said nothing. His face never changed. And that hurt the most. She felt tears coming, but she blinked them back. No—not here. Not in front of Isabella. Not in front of these people. And definitely not in front of Damian. She stood a little taller. The move caught a few people off guard. They’d lined up expecting tears or a scene maybe. Instead, Evelyn forced a smile. It felt all wrong, as if her own face betrayed her. Smiling while drowning. But she smiled anyway, because she refused to give them what they wanted. The reporter frowned, clearly disappointed her composure hadn’t cracked. Good. She met his eyes. “If that’s all, I’d like to leave.” Evelyn didn’t wait for a reply. She just walked out. The whispers chased after her: “They’re splitting for sure.” “Did you see how she looked?” “Poor woman.” “I don’t actually feel bad for her.” “She should’ve known better.” The words stuck to her skin. Poison. Still, she kept moving. Step by step, until the doors finally shut behind her. The fake smile vanished. Her body shook and she grabbed the wall just for balance. Sobs fought their way through, but she swallowed them down. At least the hallway was empty. She nearly sank to the floor. Seven years—gone in a single brutal night. Divorced, replaced, and humiliated in front of everyone. And for seven years, Damian never once defended her. Not even now. That stung the most. She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, like she could hold the pieces together. But some hurts don’t heal right away. Some—maybe not ever. — Morning came, but it didn’t bring relief. Actually, it just made things worse. Sleep had barely come. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Damian standing beside Isabella. Saw him introducing that woman as his real future. Saw the pity and the judgment. She finally dozed off right before dawn—only for her phone to explode with calls and notifications. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. She groaned, groping for the phone. A wall of news alerts, missed calls, texts, and endless social media tags greeted her. The first headline nearly made her drop the phone. “BILLIONAIRE CEO LEAVES WIFE FOR FIRST LOVE!” Her stomach curled into a tight knot. She clicked to another article. “THE END OF A FAIRYTALE MARRIAGE.” And another. “DAMIAN BLACK CHOOSES TRUE LOVE OVER GOLD DIGGER WIFE.” Gold digger? She scrolled to social media. The instant the app loaded, she froze. Her face was everywhere—thousands of photos, all snapped at the worst possible moment. Damian handing her the divorce papers. Her heartbreak. Damian’s cool indifference. Millions of views. Hundreds of thousands of comments and shares. Her misery had become everyone’s favorite sport. She dug through the comments anyway, even though she regretted it instantly. “She looks desperate.” “No wonder he left her.” “She was clearly after his money.” “She got what she deserved.” They kept coming. Relentless. Mean. Nobody cared who she actually was. Nobody wanted the truth. If only they’d seen the tiny apartment, the unpaid bills, how hard it was in the early years before Damian ever made his first real dollar. She didn’t marry a billionaire. She married a guy with nothing but dreams. She threw the phone aside, tears clouding her vision. Too late. The world had already decided who she was. And nothing would change their minds. — Time didn’t make things better. If anything, the rumors spread faster. Three days in, it was all anyone could talk about—at work, online, in the streets. Evelyn stopped going outside. Stopped answering the phone. Stopped reading the comments. Still, cruelty found ways to sneak into her world. But then the story shifted. The gold digger narrative faded. Something uglier took its place. She noticed it while scrolling through a new article, not thinking much of it at first. “INSIDER REVEALS SHOCKING DETAILS ABOUT EVELYN CARTER.” She shouldn’t have clicked. But she did. Suddenly it wasn’t just rumors—these were details. Claims she’d manipulated Damian, pressured him, controlled their finances, demanded gifts. It was all lies, every word, but people ate it up. The article went as far as describing arguments, intimate conversations—things they could only know if they’d been in her home. Or if someone close had told them. Who was spreading this? The more she read, the clearer it got. Every damning article leaned on the same “anonymous insider,” always with fresh, personal details. Whoever it was, they wanted her ruined. And whoever it was, they knew way, way too much. — That night, Evelyn sat in the dark, just the city’s rainy lights outside. She tried to focus, tried to puzzle it out. Everything—the rumors, the timing, the specifics—felt precise. Not random at all. She opened a new article. Halfway through, she stopped cold. A paragraph described a conversation from two years back. Damian’s office. Nobody else had been there. Only two people on earth even knew that talk happened. Her heart folded in on itself. She read on. More embarrassing stories, hidden confessions—secrets never told to anyone but Damian. Things said late at night, out of hope or fear. She closed her eyes. It couldn’t be. But there it was—fact after personal fact spilling out into the open. Someone was feeding this poison to the press. Someone with nowhere-near-average knowledge of their marriage. Damian? No. Impossible. Wasn’t it? Her mind reeled. But the facts were all there: her world falling apart, Damian not just letting it happen but—maybe—helping it along. Her phone buzzed against the table with another alert. She thought about ignoring it. But she looked. The latest article spelled it out: a painful, private secret, something she’d only ever confided in Damian, printed for the entire world. Her stomach turned to ice.