1 How to Make a Bad Day Worse

Vivian Archwood was a beautiful woman.

Long, light brown hair, large, expressive brown eyes, striking, angular features, and an air of regality that seemed to emanate from her, even through her photos.

Growing up, Sabrina had desperately wanted to be like her mother. She vividly remembered stealing her mother’s makeup often and practicing the way she walked in heels as a teenager. As an adult, she even decided to study the same course her mother did—medicine—even though she didn’t need it as she would be inheriting her mother’s company.

Her mother wasn’t like other mothers in their social circle, wealthy women who left their children in the care of nannies while they partied, went shopping, and attended extravagant events.

No, Vivian was determined to raise her daughter herself, and she did raise Sabrina, mostly on her own since her husband and Sabrina’s father had never wanted anything to do with either of them. Vivian and Harrison weren’t a love match, but like a lot of marriages in the elite, they were a marriage of convenience.

Most women were miserable all the time because of that. They hated their husbands, their marital homes, and even their children. But not Vivian, never Vivian… at least not up until the weeks before her death.

Vivian became withdrawn, solemn, sad. She didn’t even attend Sabrina’s college graduation. And then she passed away in a deadly car crash. People speculated that maybe she crashed the car on purpose because of whatever was bothering her.

But they didn’t even have time to gossip about her death because barely two months after her casket was lowered into the ground, Harrison Archwood remarried.

To Sabrina’s absolute horror, he married the mother of the woman who had bullied her all throughout high school.

Her already tense home became a hellscape with Mira Rosefield—her father’s new wife—and Reliana Rosefield—her stepsister—determined to make her life a living hell. And Sabrina stopped spending so much time there; she instead spent time with her fiancé of five months, with her childhood best friend, or at her mother’s grave.

It was those long visits to her mother’s grave that prompted her to go through her mother’s things one Tuesday afternoon. During her search, she came across her mother’s diary, a small, dusty book tucked away amongst the other things her father had eagerly stuffed away.

It felt like an invasion of privacy, but the lavender scent that came off the leather cover made her desperate to be near anything that had once been her mother’s. So she opened it, read it, and that action set her down the path she was on at that moment.

When Sabrina was done sorting through the documents the PI had given her, she nodded slowly and slipped the documents into an envelope.

“And you’re sure that all of this is true?” Sabrina asked the man sitting across from her.

The coffee shop they were meeting in was small and sparsely populated. The fewer people saw them together, the better.

“Do you doubt my work, Miss Archwood?” But the PI looked at Sabrina with pity; it wasn’t every day you found out that your father was responsible for your mother’s death. “It seems that your mother was aware of his infidelity for a while, but she didn’t feel like her life was in danger until a few weeks before her death. Hence her diary entries.”

Sabrina nodded again. She looked cool and calm and not at all like the broken mess that she was inside. She had known her father wasn’t faithful, given how quickly he had remarried, but this had been going on for much longer than she’d expected.

Reliana was a year younger than her, and since Reliana was actually her father’s biological daughter as well, it meant that Mira had been her father’s mistress since her parents had first gotten married.

Her father got rid of her mother just so he could bring his mistress and the woman who was apparently her half-sister into the home.

She clamped a hand over her mouth to keep the bile from flooding out. They had a family dinner tonight. How was she going to deal with seeing their faces after this? And even if she wanted to do something, what could she do?

Tears sprung up in her eyes as she thought of her mother. She thought of the mangled car emergency services had pried from the scene, she thought of her mother’s body, and she felt her throat tighten when she realized that all that was her father’s fault.

“Listen, girl, I recommend holding onto this for now, take it to the authorities when you have the backing necessary to stand against your father,” the PI reached forward to pat her hand, watching her struggle to fight back her tears. “I can drive you home or somewhere. You’re not in any state to be alone right now.”

“Don’t worry,” she said with a tight smile. This PI was showing more care for her than her father ever had. “I have somewhere to go.”

The PI nodded and left not long after. Sabrina gave herself one more moment to breathe and re-center herself. Her mother had always taught her to be level-headed regardless of what she faced. As much as she wanted to cry and scream and grieve the way she had been the past few months, now wasn’t the time.

She pulled out her phone and typed out a message to her fiancé to let him know that she was on her way to see him before shoving her phone into her bag. She and Kyler had known each other since they were in diapers. He loved her mum as much as she did, and he would understand how horrifying this was for her.

Through her anguish, she was grateful that she had people she knew would stand by her no matter what.

She picked up her files, shoved them in her tote bag, and then walked out of the cafe to her car.

Her thoughts were occupied throughout her drive from the cafe to Kyler’s place. She wondered if Reliana was aware of who her father was. Was that why she had hated Sabrina throughout high school? Why did her father wait until that year to get rid of her mother?

So many questions and only one person had the answer.

She cursed inwardly and pulled up into the parking lot of Kyler’s penthouse. She pulled out her phone to go through the messages and saw that he hadn’t answered yet. She shrugged it off; it wasn’t unheard of for Kyler to leave his phone someplace while being busy.

She messaged her best friend and personal assistant—Charlotte—to let her know she wanted to meet tomorrow, before her family dinner at least.

Sabrina got out of the car and made her way upstairs and to the very top of the penthouse where Kyler lived. She glanced at her reflection in the elevator mirror and sighed. The past two months of grief showed starkly on her face. Eye bags, frown lines, she’d even lost weight.

But Kyler had never cared. He encouraged her to grieve and let it all out, even when she didn’t look her absolute best. He assured her that he’d always find her absolutely beautiful, and unlike most men, he was completely understanding of the fact that she wanted to wait till marriage.

She smiled at the thought of seeing him. It would light up her day.

Or so she thought.

As she walked into the apartment, she noticed multiple things. The first was the clothes that were strewn everywhere—not just men’s clothes, but women’s clothing and underwear. The second was the sound of moans coming from somewhere towards the bedroom, and the third was the sound of a bed creaking rhythmically.

The first thought Sabrina had was that this was just a bad dream, maybe the entire day was a dream, she refused to believe that Kyler would ever do this. Maybe he was watching a movie? But the moaning got louder, her eyes lingered on the bra on the table and she heard a female voice yelling about how she was getting ’closer.’

Unsteady on her feet, she followed the sounds. She slammed open the door to her fiancé’s room and with wide eyes took in the sight of her fiancé pounding into her best friend.