They Plot Against Me, I Ruined Them

Chapter 3

I rattled off the overtime assignments for the day in two seconds flat, wrapped up the staff meeting right before seven, and only kept my secretary Chloe behind after everyone else left.

"Chloe, head out for me. That thing I asked you to look into last time..."

I unlocked my phone and tapped open i********:, the app pinging softly as it loaded.

First, I messaged the restaurant to say I had an emergency and couldn't make it tonight, then paid five times the full venue booking fee as compensation.

Next, I pulled up Von's chat thread, which was blowing up with 99+ unread messages.

Von: Wifey dearest, I'm taking Noemie to her training class first, I'll pick you up from work later to celebrate our anniversary.

'Training class? Training to be a homewrecker?'

Von: Honey, that video was totally a misunderstanding, it's just Noemie practicing for her acting class.

Von: Wife, please pick up the phone.

Von: Those vultures in the media making up garbage out of nowhere are the worst.

Von: Babe, I'm heading to the company right now to get people to handle the public backlash, you just focus on your meeting, don't worry about a thing!

Von: Wifey dearest, the security guards won't let me in!

I stared at the screen and gagged a little.

Fighting back the wave of disgust, I typed out a reply and hit send.

Lia: Good hubby, I got it. There's some work stuff going on here, we'll talk later.

'Ugh, does that sound too fake?'

What choice did I have? Von put on this whole meek, doormat act on the surface, but he's actually a total schemer who never makes a move unless he's guaranteed a payout. I had to keep him off guard for now.

As for Noemie's own 99+ unread messages? I didn't have time to look at those at all.

Because right then, Chloe walked in carrying a thick stack of files.

She was dripping with sweat, her voice tight and urgent, "President Jordan, that woman is definitely hiding something! She faked her age. She's not 19, she's 26, same age as Von!

"And her original household registration is from the same village as Von. We sent people to ask around there, and the two of them have gone to school together since they were little. She's not some adopted daughter at all. She's Von's childhood sweetheart..."

A satisfied smile tugged at my lips as I listened, and I took a small sip of champagne.

I'd been worried I was barking up the wrong tree, but now the dust had settled and everything lined up exactly with what I'd thought.

I'd planned to look into this properly once we wrapped up the company's IPO, but this whole mess landed right in my lap way earlier than I expected. Perfect time to follow the trail and uncover the whole mess.

I'd first spotted the first red flag a week earlier.

My career was thriving, my family life seemed stable. I suddenly decided I wanted a sweet little daughter.

Years of overworking had left my body unable to get pregnant naturally. Lucky for me, I'd frozen my eggs abroad when I turned 30.

I told everyone I was going on a business trip and headed back to the clinic where I'd stored my eggs.

Discretion was everything for plans like this, especially for someone in my position, so I hadn't even told my husband before I had all the details sorted out.

People in my social circle put a premium on privacy for things like this, so I'd picked a low-profile private clinic.

The director there was a gentle and polite woman. She'd greeted me personally on my first visit.

For some reason I didn't know, she'd transferred the clinic to her cousin later on.

As soon as I reached the clinic entrance, I spotted the cousin from a distance.

Even though we'd never laid eyes on each other before, she was absurdly friendly.

The cousin led me to her office.

In the corner, I noticed a black-and-white photograph. The woman in the picture was smiling warmly.

It was the clinic's former director.

I sighed and offered my condolences to her cousin.

"My cousin worked so hard her whole life, helped so many women who wanted them bring their little angels into the world, but she never had a family of her own for the longest time. She finally found a happy marriage, was just about to move back to New York for good, and then she died in a car accident."

Her eyes glistened with tears as she pulled a photo album out of a drawer.

I flipped through it page by page, looking at travel photos of this incredible woman posing in countries all over the world.

When I flipped to the very last page, my gaze froze solid.

It was a wedding photo: a dashing groom had his arm linked through the dean's, both of them radiating pure, giddy happiness.

I knew that man's face better than the back of my own hand.

It was my husband, Von.

The world was so damn small.

I sucked in a sharp breath.

After all, I'd heard the former dean couldn't have children, that was exactly why she'd gone into this line of work in the first place.

So, Noemie was never, in a million years, the "ex-wife's daughter" Von had claimed she was.

I forced my face to stay calm, pulled up Noemie's photo on my phone, and held it out to her. "Do you know this girl?"

Her eyes had barely landed on the screen before she yelped dramatically, "Oh my God! You know my cousin's daughter?"

"Daughter?" I blurted out, caught off guard.

"Foster daughter, duh! When my cousin got married, her husband brought the kid with him. Said she was left by his dead ex-wife. My cousin couldn't have kids of her own, so they raised her together."

That was word-for-word the exact same garbage Von had fed me when we first got together.

The dean was a wildly successful, rich woman in her first marriage, and Von had spun her into some teenage single mom who got knocked up out of wedlock.

His childhood sweetheart had somehow magically turned into his "foster daughter."

And him? He carted this so-called "foster daughter", Noemie, from place to place, leeching off one wealthy woman after the next.

Single, rolling in cash, no kids, of course, I'd been the perfect next mark for him.