PART 1
A message lit up my husband’s phone while he was in the shower. “Dear parents of Rising Sun Nursery School, we look forward to welcoming you and your child tomorrow morning for the inauguration ceremony. Please arrive on time.” I froze. Julien and I had been married for five years, but we had no children. So why was he receiving a message from a nursery school?
At first, I told myself it had to be a mistake. Maybe someone had entered the wrong number. Maybe it meant nothing. Then another notification appeared. “Theo’s dad, the children are going to love the new playground you donated to the school!” A second message followed. “And the team has prepared a little surprise for you and Ms. Camille. You may arrive early.” Theo. Wasn’t that the name of my husband’s secretary’s son?
My heart slowed, as if my body understood before my mind did that something inside my life had just cracked. I placed the phone back exactly where it had been. Then I texted my assistant: “Pick me up tomorrow morning. We’re going to Rising Sun Nursery School.”
A few minutes later, Julien Moreau came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. He picked up his phone, and I saw the faint smile at the corner of his mouth. Then his phone vibrated again. He did not answer in front of me. He simply dressed, adjusted his white shirt, and said in a fake hurried voice, “My love, there’s an emergency at the office. Don’t wait up for me tonight.”
I nodded calmly and even walked him to the door. But the moment he left, I opened the tracking app on my phone and located his car. I had given him that limited-edition Rolls-Royce Phantom only a week earlier for our fifth wedding anniversary. I never imagined he would use it so quickly to visit his mistress.
Thirty minutes later, the location led me to a private villa in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near the Bois de Boulogne. Black gates. Security cameras. Perfectly trimmed hedges. At the end of the driveway stood a huge house, glowing like something from a luxury magazine. Julien’s car entered without hesitation, as if he knew every corner, as if he were coming home.
The door opened, and Camille Lefèvre stepped out. His secretary. She wore a pale dress, her hair loose, and the smile of a woman waiting for her man. She ran to Julien and wrapped herself around him. “Julien… I sent Theo to my mother’s tonight. What took you so long?”
The air seemed to leave my lungs. So it was true. Two women walking their dogs passed behind me. One whispered that Julien and Camille looked like a movie couple. The other laughed and said they had heard them from the garden the other night. Then one of them mentioned the villa was worth more than twenty-five million euros and said he had bought it in his wife’s name. I smiled bitterly.
Six months earlier, I had found the file for that villa in Julien’s briefcase. I had been happy then. I thought he was planning a surprise for me. A house. A symbol. Proof that, after years together, he still wanted to build something with me. But no. The villa was not for me. It was for Camille Lefèvre.
Then I heard Julien’s low, teasing voice. “Didn’t you miss me enough at the office?” Camille tapped his chest and said, “I feel like Madame Élise watches you too closely.” Julien lifted her in his arms. “Madame Élise? The only Madame Moreau is you. And anyway, she isn’t even in your league.”
I closed my eyes. Even expecting betrayal, those words still cut deep. When I met Julien, he had nothing. No family name. No network. No fortune. My father had warned me that Julien was too hungry, and men who are too hungry often bite the hand that feeds them.
But I loved him. I defended him against my family. I put my name, my money, and my connections behind him. I convinced my father to invest fifty million euros in his first company. I opened doors Julien could never have reached alone. I turned him into a respected man, a CEO, Mr. Moreau. And in return, he gave me a mistress, a hidden child, and a house bought with my family’s money.
I took photos of everything: the villa, the car, Julien, Camille. Then I sent them to my private investigator and my lawyer. If I had lifted Julien Moreau that high, I could also bring him down.
Then I called him. It took him a long time to answer. His voice was annoyed. “Elise, I told you I had an emergency at the office. Why are you calling?” I answered calmly, “Oh yes, the office. I almost forgot. I just wanted to tell you my father is coming to see you tonight. He said he’s heading straight there.”
Silence. Then his voice changed. “Your father is coming now?” I replied, “That’s what he told me.” He hung up immediately. A few minutes later, Julien rushed out of the villa, his shirt buttoned wrong, his hair still messy. Camille stood at the door, furious. I laughed softly. My father was not going to the office, of course. But I had no intention of letting them enjoy their evening.
After Julien left, I crossed the driveway and rang the doorbell. Camille opened quickly, clearly thinking Julien had returned. “Julien! I knew you wouldn’t be able to—” She stopped when she saw me. “Mrs. Moreau…”
Her face went pale. “No… you misunderstood.” I looked at her. “Really? Not your lover? Not my husband? Not the house he gave you? Not your son, whom the school calls Theo Moreau?”
For a few seconds, she looked afraid. Then her expression changed. She straightened her back, lifted her chin, and I saw the real Camille. Not the sweet secretary. Not the fragile mother. The mistress who had waited too long to become the wife.
“Since you know everything, Madame Moreau, why pretend to be wounded?” she said. “Julien doesn’t love you anymore. You cling to him because you have money. Do you really think a family name is enough to keep a man?”
I said nothing, so she grew bolder. She told me Julien was tired of me, my family, and the way I treated him like an investment. Then she smiled. “And haven’t you ever wondered why you never got pregnant in five years?”
My blood went cold. Camille leaned closer. “He made sure you took those little pills every night. He said they were for stress, migraines, sleep… While you swallowed them, I gave him a son.”
I stared at her for a long time. No shouting. No trembling. Then I looked past her at the villa. That house, those walls, that arrogance—all of it had been paid for by my silence. I raised my hand and slapped her.
Camille pressed a hand to her cheek, stunned. “You hit me?” I leaned closer. “You had the courage to sleep with a married man. You should have the courage to take a slap.”
Then I removed my diamond wedding ring and threw it into the sewer in front of the villa. “Congratulations, Camille. You picked up what I no longer want.” She went pale but still tried to smile. She said Julien was CEO Moreau now, that Paris respected him, and that one word from her would make him divorce me tomorrow. I smiled coldly. “Perfect. Then tomorrow we’ll see who he chooses.”
