The Ex-Wife's Burning Elegance novel Chapter 1109

Just then, someone hurried over to Skyler, leaned in, and whispered a few words in his ear.

Skyler’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly. He nodded, acknowledging what he’d heard, and turned to Lauretta’s father. “Something’s just come up—I’ll have to excuse myself for a moment.”

Lauretta’s father, remembering the commotion at the party earlier, nodded in understanding. After all, Simone was Leonard’s younger sister—those compromising videos and photos needed to be dealt with quickly. They couldn’t be allowed to spread. Someone had to track down whoever leaked them and give the Lerman family a proper explanation.

If people started suspecting the Williams family was behind it, there could be lasting bad blood between the families.

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Rachel left the party feeling thoroughly satisfied.

Getting her hands on Simone’s scandalous photos and videos had been a lucky break. She’d been tailing Simone for weeks, hoping to catch her doing something reckless. Lately, Simone had been receiving a lot of packages, and every time she picked one up, there was something odd about her expression.

Rachel suspected the packages held some secret and asked Colby Martinez for a favor: intercept one of Simone’s deliveries. When Rachel opened the box, she found it stuffed with explicit photos of Simone.

The discovery made Rachel sneer in contempt. So, Simone really was trash—sleeping around with so many men, even more brazen than Rachel herself. At least Rachel only had Jasper Wilkinson and Colby.

To keep her involvement hidden, Rachel made backup copies of everything, then resealed the package and put it back where she found it. From then on, she kept a close eye on Simone, intercepting her packages whenever possible. It soon became clear someone was using those photos to blackmail Simone, demanding confidential business information from the Lerman Group.

Rachel wasn’t interested in corporate warfare—she had neither the resources nor the ambition to meddle in the affairs of these powerful families. But just having Simone’s dirty secrets in hand was enough to thrill her.

She genuinely felt like fate was on her side, handing her such damning evidence. Now she could finally show Joshua what kind of woman Simone really was—not some untouchable angel, but a shameless tramp.

Israel was pacing the hospital corridor, and muttered, almost to himself, “You know, there’s a saying—flies don’t swarm to eggs without cracks. If Stella hadn’t been so careless, would Shawn have dared to go so far? Maybe she sent him the wrong signals…”

He didn’t get to finish. Haynes, standing nearby, cut him off with a cold snap.

“Mr. Israel, are you really trying to excuse Shawn’s actions? You’d rather believe anything than accept Shawn’s own confession, and you’re blaming Star for everything instead. At this point, I have to wonder: is your whole family working together to set her up? Did you deliberately lead her to Shawn’s room?”

Haynes’s icy gaze swept across the entire Williams family.

“If coming back to your family means nothing but endless humiliation and false accusations, then maybe Star is better off never returning at all.”