The Ex-Wife's Burning Elegance

That evening, Stella received a call from Skyler.

On the other end of the line, Skyler insisted the rumors hadn't come from him-he claimed he had no idea how things had gotten out of hand. He promised that, at the upcoming family reunion, he'd clear everything up in person.

Stella listened, unruffled. Her heart was still as a lake at dawn.

Once rumors start, no amount of denial can erase them; in the eyes of outsiders, Skyler's clarifications would only make him look guiltier, as if he were trying a little too hard to cover things up.

For all she knew, Skyler might even see the gossip as a stroke of luck.

The whispers about Stella being an illegitimate child had barely died down when a new, even more explosive scandal rocked both society's inner circles and the public at large.

"Shocking! The real illegitimate daughter isn't Stella—it's Aurora!"

"Aurora's goddess persona shattered-turns out she's the daughter of the other woman!"

tangled drama: Skyler, the Fisherwoman, and Nora-love,

evidence-pages and pages of it. Even Skyler's mysterious disappearance and memory loss as a young man were dragged into the light. The dossier was dozens of pages long, packed with

was nothing compared to the

of high society's debutantes— elegant, poised, a paragon of virtue with not the slightest blemish on her record. Every gesture she made drew attention, admiration, envy, and

been toppled. The revelation that Aurora was the child of a mistress was simply

disbelief. Even the old-money circles were shaken to their

The truth was

Aurora's grace and

who'd long harbored resentment, who'd spent years looking for any dirt on her and always come up

and

telling me Aurora, the golden girl, is actually illegitimate? So Stella's the real

grow up in the Williams family,