Not A Small-Town Girl

"I’ve got a video I fixed up for you to watch."

Danielle pulled out her phone and projected the footage she had managed to recover earlier that day.

Outside the study, Audrey was pressing her ear to the door, trying to catch every word. But the thick walls made it impossible to hear anything.

She thought, ’What secret is Danielle about to reveal? Why does she need to bring Mom and Dad and Joseph into the study to talk about it privately?

’Is she talking behind my back? Badmouthing me? Of course, that made sense-Danielle is from a small village, so it isn’t surprising that she is so petty.’

Inside the study, the three of them watched the video in shocked silence. Joseph’s face darkened, his anger practically radiating from him as if he wanted to rip everything apart.

pressuring him into marriage. All along, she’d been lying to him. If it weren’t for Danielle

guilt he’d carried for years- feeling pressured by Sienna’s constant moral guilt trips-began to make sense. It had all been part

lifted off his shoulders. It wasn’t Sienna who had been

small figure in the video

stunned. They hadn’t understood why Joseph had suddenly

is this woman?" Joseph’s voice cut through the

without a trace. That same year, Robert brought home a new woman- Emily, Sienna’s biological mother-and a girl about Ruby’s age.

Dixon family quickly plummeted. She was treated worse than the servants, which is why someone from the Dixon family ended up working as a waitress at a hotel. Then, about four years ago, she met Joseph... but not long

of Ruby, the eldest daughter of the Dixon family. Her life was so tragic. Her mother was from a good family, but when she