"Stop playing the victim." His voice was flat. "Who could possibly bully you?"
He didn't explicitly defend Eva, but he clearly cast Sara as the villain.
The accusation lodged in her chest like a stone. Ice water seemed to pour over her head, extinguishing the last spark of hope.
She couldn't refute it.
She knew exactly what he was alluding to.
Shortly after they married, a model had tried to provoke her. Assuming Sara was just a glorified assistant with no real power in the Harding family, the woman had tried to seduce Adrian at a banquet.
Later, while tidying his suit, Sara found the model's contact info and a room key in his pocket.
She didn't dare confront Adrian. Instead, she quietly investigated the woman. Finding the model was bribing judges in a competition show, Sara leaked the evidence. The model was cut from the program, her career ruined, buried under a mountain of debt for breach of contract.
Sara thought she had been subtle.
But when the news broke, Adrian had looked up from his tablet. "You did it, didn't you?"
Terror had seized her chest.
But he had smiled—gentle, terrifying—and a chill had crawled down her spine. "Are you happy?"