(Finding Forever After the Betrayal Chapter 18
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The investigation’s results came back the next day. A cold, hard knot formed
in my stomach as I read through the report. It confirmed everything I’d suspected.
Hannah White–she’d targeted me from the moment she stepped foot in my
office at Foster Designs. I remember thinking she seemed… fragile. Elegant, yes,
with a quiet grace that spoke of old money, but there was a vulnerability about
her too. A vulnerability she weaponized.
She played the victim perfectly, the tears welling up in her eyes so
convincingly. Fake phone calls from “parents” orchestrated to tug at my
heartstrings. And I, fool that I was, fell for it. I took her under my wing, offered
her mentorship, a place to stay. I wanted to help.
It wasn’t until she saw Aiden and Ethan – Aiden Peck, the man whose face
graced financial magazines, and Ethan Affleck, Los Angeles‘ famed race car
driver, whose posters once plastered every wall in the city – that I understood the
true extent of her envy. The realization hit me like a physical blow. The men I
loved, the life I had… it was everything she craved, everything she could never
have on her own.
The report laid bare her manipulative tactics: the constant complaints, the
clinging, the calculated attempts to ingratiate herself with Aiden and Ethan. The
petty jealousies, magnified into acts of sabotage. The faked injury to her hand,
the fabricated stories of hardship, my award shattered on the floor… and the
flowers. God, the flowers. After a short time as my intern, she knew about my
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