Chapter 3 – The Hidden Heiress

“I’d like to see you try” the man yawned, sounding unimpressed.

Charlotte’s face turned an unbecoming red. Flair turned glacial eyes on me. “Hurry up and send me the divorce papers Johnathon,” she said coldly “Or shall I have them drawn up?”

“I’ll send them” I snarled “You didn’t even have the decency to wait until they were signed before moving on, did you?”

She laughed and threaded her arm through the man’s looking up at him with adoring eyes. My chest tightened. She used to look at me like that. When we were first married. I shrugged the feeling of nostalgia off.

“He’s a better man than you’ll ever be,” Flair said nonchalantly.

“You slut” Charlotte hissed “acting like a damn saint and holier than thou when in retrospect, you’ve been spreading your legs, left, right, and center for this man. You’re no betrayed wife. You’re just a w***e, acting as though she’s better than everyone else. You disgust me” she told Flair, looking at her with condemnation.

By now we had drawn a crowd and there were several reporters in the club aiming their cameras towards us. I glanced nervously towards them. No doubt they were hoping for a juicy story. Charlotte was notorious for getting in trouble with the press and her grandfather would be upset if she got maligned again. Before I could intervene or interfere, Flair moved, faster than I could have anticipated, her anger overcoming her and she slapped Charlotte, hard, across the face, a bright red handprint appearing on Charlotte’s left cheek. Charlotte put a hand up to her cheek in shock, tears springing to her eyes as she let out a scream.

“Do not confuse me with yourself” Flair hissed with venom “I am not a slut. I am not a homewrecker like yourself. I have nothing to be ashamed of, unlike yourself Charlotte Deluca, who had an affair with a married man” she declared loudly, the reporters hanging on every word as Charlotte glanced around, her face paling as she realized. I grabbed Charlotte’s hand, preventing her from retaliating. The man with Flair took hold of her hand.

“Flair, let’s go,” he said gently, “I think you’ve had enough for tonight.”

She smiled up at him and nodded her agreement. Without another word, both of them turned and began to head for the exit, while Rachel followed calmly in their wake.

“She slapped me” Charlotte wailed as I looked down at her.

“Miss Deluca, would you like to make a statement on what we just saw?” A reporter called out excitedly.

Charlotte sniffed while I began to drag her towards the exit, cursing inwardly in my mind. Not only had tonight not gone as planned, with Charlotte now being caught by reporters provoking Flair, but I was no closer to discovering the identity of the man that Flair was with.

“Johnathon, what am I going to do?” Charlotte moaned as we headed towards our car “If Grandfather sees me in the paper again…” she trailed off, looking sick.

“Will your brother help you?” I asked tightly.

“Half brother” she snapped “and no.”

I clenched my jaw and got in the car, a desolate Charlotte hopping in the backseat with me. Nothing more was said.

Flair POV

I never expected to see my soon-to-be ex-husband in the club tonight. All I wanted was to spend some time away with my friend Rachel, partying instead of licking my wounds on that undeserving bastard. I never anticipated his reaction to seeing me though. Was it my imagination, or had my ex-husband acted jealous? I seethed as I stormed from the club, Rachel in my wake.

“That son of a b***h” I muttered through gritted teeth as Rachel put her hand on my shoulder, attempting to comfort me “How dare he accuse me of cheating when he was the cheater!” I exclaimed indignantly.

I glanced down at my hand and flexed my fingers. I had to admit that slapping Charlotte Deluca had given me great satisfaction. Rachel snorted “Well you certainly gave the reporters a scandal to write about,” she said as I turned my head to look at her.

I shrugged. It was not my business if they plastered Charlotte’s pathetic face all over the papers. In fact, I hoped they did. I wanted her reputation to be ruined. She thought she was a victim in all this? It was galling that she had seen fit to accuse me of the very thing she had done to me.

My brother stepped forward. It had been a long time since I had seen Knox, years in fact. Ever since I insisted on marrying Johnathon against my family’s wishes, I had cut them off, pretending to be a nobody, to gain Johnathon’s trust and have him fall in love with the real me, rather than my family’s name. That had backfired. It had been Knox I had been dancing with when Johnathon saw fit to interrupt me with his damning accusations. I smirked. If Johnathon knew how wrong he was and what Knox’s real identity was, he’d be horrified. Then again, Knox tended to stay out of the papers and was something of an introvert at times, while his fraternal twin Ian, was the face of our family name and the occasional extrovert.

“Say the word and I can have Johnathon disappear,” Ian said tightly, a scowl on his face.

I knew he had never liked Johnathon and this little scene had cemented in his mind exactly how untrustworthy and despicable Johnathon’s character was.

I shook my head and gave my older brother a grim smile. “As much as I would like to take you up on that offer Ian, I want to deal with Johnathon on my own. Once the divorce is final, he’ll have no reason to continue contacting me or be in my life. That’s all I want, is for him to leave me alone.”

Rachel looked troubled. “He didn’t act like a man that was going to leave you alone Flair. Did you see the angry look on his face? He acted like you were still his wife. He acted exactly like a jealous husband would act.”

I laughed, trying to shrug off Rachel’s concerns “Well he’s out of luck then because the divorce will be final soon. Besides” I sneered, folding my arms across my chest and regarding my brother and best friend steadily “I would never get back with somebody who cheated on me.”

Knox frowned even deeper. “Father is going to be displeased when he finds out that Johnathon had the gall to cheat on somebody of your status,” he said with glinting eyes.

“I’m aware that Father is going to be extremely angry” I agreed “but he should be angry with me. I’m the one who ignored his warnings about Johnathon. I’m the one who told him that Johnathon was the one for me. He was right when he said that Johnathon was untrustworthy and undeserving of my love” I said a bit bitterly.

Knox glanced around and noted that reporters were beginning to walk out of the club. He grabbed me by the arm and tugged me into the limousine, Rachel hastily getting in behind us.

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