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Chapter 4: The Best Friend’s Betrayal

Half an hour later, Chloe rushed into the mansion, completely breathless. Her face still bore the meticulous pink bridesmaid makeup, but the panic and deep guilt in her eyes were impossible to hide.

As soon as she saw me sitting on the large, white leather sofa in the middle of the living room, still wearing my stained wedding dress, she rushed forward, fake tears streaming down her face.

“Vivienne! You scared me to death! Where did you disappear to?! You didn’t even answer your phone!” she cried.

“The message was from you, wasn’t it?” I interrupted.

My voice was dead calm. It wasn’t a question. It was an absolute affirmation.

Chloe’s expression instantly froze. Her fake tears hung precariously on her eyelashes. Her eyes blinked rapidly, instinctively avoiding my gaze.

“Vivienne, what are you talking about? What message?” she stammered defensively. “I… I don’t understand. I only touched your phone to clean it.”

I looked directly at Chloe, my gaze piercing through her pathetic lies. “Chloe, how many years have we known each other? Ten years? Every single time you lie, your left index finger unconsciously digs into your right palm. Have you managed to break that habit yet?”

Chloe recoiled as if she had been burned by fire. She quickly pulled her hands apart, clenching them into fists at her sides. Her face instantly turned ghost pale.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she trembled.

“Madeline,” I spoke the dead girl’s name coldly.

Chloe lifted her head, her pupils contracting into tiny pinpricks, revealing raw shock and fear. “How… how do you know her name?” she blurted out, her voice breaking completely.

“How I know doesn’t matter.” I stood up slowly, approaching her step by step. The heavy silk of my wedding dress dragged across the floor, making a soft rustling sound in the cold, silent villa. “The important thing is why did you choose today? Why wait until the altar to tell me?”

Chloe pressed her back against the icy wall, cornered. Her eyes were incredibly complex, filled with fear, bitter resentment, and a hint of despondent madness.

“Why?” Chloe laughed. It was a terrifyingly sinister, ugly laugh. Her voice grew shrill and piercing. “Because I have had enough, Vivienne! I have had enough of seeing you act like a blindfolded, happy fool! I have had enough of seeing you walk around with a face identical to hers, enjoying all the billions and the luxury that rightfully belonged to her! The person Harrison loved from the beginning to the end was never you!”

She pointed a shaking finger at my face.

“It’s her! It’s Madeline! She died three years ago! And what are you, Vivienne? You are just a cheap, pathetic copy! You are just lucky to have a similar profile to hers! All the tenderness, all the money, everything he gives you is just him looking through your body to see her ghost! Do you know that even the expensive perfume he buys for you is the exact scent Madeline liked best?! Every time he looks at you, his mind is filled with the image of a dead woman! Don’t you find that utterly disgusting?!”

“Don’t you feel ashamed?!” Chloe screamed, finally releasing all the toxic hatred she had been harboring in secret for years.

I listened in absolute silence. My beautiful face remained completely expressionless. Only when she stopped screaming, breathless and panting like a wild animal, did I finally speak in a terrifyingly calm voice.

“So what?” I asked smoothly.

“Chloe, why are you telling me all this?” I took another step forward, staring down at her flushed, sweaty face. “Are you trying to defend my honor? Or is it because you also love Harrison? You’ve been obsessed with him for years, haven’t you? But you could only stand on the sidelines and watch him marry a cheap copycat instead of you.”

Chloe trembled violently, as if her deepest, darkest secret had been brutally exposed to the light. The resentment in her eyes vanished, replaced by sheer panic.

“You’re talking nonsense!” she denied, but her voice had lost all its vigor.

“Whether I’m talking nonsense or not, you know the truth,” I laughed coldly. “The pathetic way you looked at Harrison during college. The photos you secretly took of him on your phone. You thought I didn’t know? You deliberately approached me, became my ‘best friend’, not because you liked me. You only wanted to get closer to the billionaire through me.”

I shook my head, my voice filled with cruel, dripping pity. “What a pity, Chloe. You don’t even have the right physical face to be his substitute. In Harrison’s eyes, there is only his dead goddess. Whether she is alive or dead, you will never, ever be in his line of sight.”

“Shut up! Shut your mouth, Vivienne!”

Chloe screamed like a rabid, cornered beast. She shrieked and lunged directly at me, her long, manicured acrylic nails pointing directly at my face, aiming to scratch my eyes out.

I was fully prepared. I dodged smoothly to the right and simultaneously extended my high heel slightly.

Chloe tripped hard over the hem of my heavy wedding dress, her foot catching on my extended leg. She completely lost her balance, screamed loudly, and fell face-first onto the hard marble floor.

She lay sprawled on the ground, her hair disheveled, her expensive pink bridesmaid dress torn at the seam, completely losing all her initial splendor.

I stood looking down at her from above, my gaze as cold as if I were looking at a pile of rotting garbage.

“Chloe, do not provoke me anymore,” my voice was icy. “What happened today, including the message you sent to ruin my wedding, I can temporarily overlook. But there is one absolute condition: you must keep your mouth shut. If you dare to go to the media, fabricate even half a word, or dare to help Harrison deal with me…”

I leaned down close to her ear, emphasizing each word clearly.

“I will gather all the financial evidence of how you have been abusing your corporate position for years to embezzle project funds to pay off your gambling-addicted younger brother. I will send it directly to your CEO. And while I’m at it, I’ll forward a copy to Harrison. Tell me, Chloe… if Harrison knew that his innocent, kind little friend was doing such dirty, illegal things behind his back, what kind of look of disgust would he give you?”

Chloe suddenly froze entirely.

She looked up at me with a terrified, broken expression. Her face was as white as a sheet of paper. Her lips trembled uselessly, unable to utter a single word of defense. Only naked, paralyzing fear remained.

I stood up straight, brushed my hands gracefully as if brushing away an invisible layer of dirt, and walked away.

Chloe almost crawled on her hands and knees, frantically fleeing from the mansion in terror. The large front door slammed shut behind her, and the world once again became beautifully silent.

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