PART 3: The Rising Frost
PART 3: The Rising Frost
Polite facades mask deep-seated social venom.
"Good morning, darling," Olivia purred, walking up to Michael and pressing a perfunctory kiss against his cheek while her eyes remained fixed on Sophie. "You're up early. Is the wedding planner driving you crazy too, or did you just wake up missing me?"
"Neither," Michael said evenly, stepping back from the island. "Just catching up on some coffee before my morning calls."
Olivia turned her attention toward Sophie, her voice dropping instantly from honeyed sweetness into a frosty command.
"Sophie, my white silk blouse from the dry cleaner needs to be steamed immediately. And make sure you use the low-temperature setting. If you scorch it like you did my linen skirt last month, I'll have to deduct it from your weekly pay."
Michael’s jaw tightened.
He knew for a fact that Sophie had never scorched any linen skirt; Olivia had spilled bleach on it herself during a DIY tie-dye experiment gone wrong, blaming the housekeeper because she couldn't admit her own clumsiness.
"The linen skirt incident was handled, Olivia," Michael interjected smoothly, his voice carrying an edge of warning. "Let's leave wages out of dry-cleaning accidents."
Olivia blinked, a flash of genuine shock crossing her features before she quickly masked it with a light, mocking laugh.
"Oh, listen to you defending the staff," Olivia teased, resting a manicured hand on his chest. "You're getting so soft, Michael. Next thing you know, you'll be inviting her to sit at our dinner table."
"Is that a rule? Who sits where?" a raspy, authoritative voice spoke up from the hallway.
Margaret rolled into the kitchen in her motorized wheelchair, her sharp gray eyes darting between the three of them with the accumulated wisdom of nearly eight decades of watching human nature unfold.
"Good morning, Margaret," Olivia immediately pivoted, adopting her highest-pitched, most saccharine social voice as she rushed over to adjust the elderly woman's woolen blanket. "Did you sleep well? Sophie made your oatmeal just the way you like it."
"I slept fine, dear," Margaret replied dryly, ignoring Olivia's theatrical coddling as she steered her chair directly toward Michael. "And I don't need anyone managing where people sit in my home. Good food tastes the same whether you're eating it in the dining room or standing by the counter."
Olivia’s smile strained at the edges.
"Of course, Margaret. I just meant—"
"I know what you meant, dear," Margaret cut her off smoothly, taking a sip of the water Sophie had already placed beside her tray. "Now, Michael, take your coffee and get to work. You've got numbers to review, and I have a crossword puzzle to finish."
Michael nodded, casting one final, lingering look at Sophie, who kept her head bowed and continued wiping down the stainless steel counter.
The tension in the air was palpable, thick enough to cut with a knife.
Olivia thought she was maintaining control of her domain, but she had no idea that the foundation beneath her feet was rapidly turning to dust.
Whispering Campaigns
Calculated rumors build malicious fabricated traps.
By Wednesday afternoon, Michael realized that Olivia’s psychological warfare against Sophie had escalated from isolated acts of petty cruelty into a systematic, deliberate campaign of destruction.
He had returned home early from a meeting with the estate accountant, parking his car in the rear garage and walking up the side stone steps that led directly past the back pantry windows.
The window was cracked open to let in the spring breeze.
Inside, Olivia was speaking in a hushed, urgent tone on her cell phone.
"I'm telling you, Robert, she's becoming a liability," Olivia’s voice drifted clearly through the screen. "She's constantly hovering around Michael, asking inappropriate questions about his personal finances, and I caught her going through my engagement gifts yesterday."
Michael froze on the stone landing.
Robert—his father.
His father was on the other end of the line, listening to this fabricated garbage.
"Are you serious, Olivia?" Robert’s deep voice filtered through the speakerphone. "The girl seemed harmless enough when we hired her."
"People change, Robert," Olivia lied smoothly, her tone dripping with manufactured concern. "She has this sullen, resentful attitude whenever I ask her to clean properly. I'm genuinely worried she's going to sabotage the wedding or steal something valuable before the ceremony. Margaret is too soft-hearted to see it, but Michael needs to let her go immediately."
"Well, have you talked to Michael about it?"
"I have, but he’s being entirely too defensive," Olivia sighed heavily, playing the victim with terrifying precision. "He thinks I'm just being a stressed-out bride. But you know how these domestic workers are—if you give them an inch, they take a mile. If she's still here on our wedding day, I won't be able to enjoy a single moment."
Michael gripped the stone window ledge so tightly his knuckles turned bone-white.
It was a masterclass in manipulation.
Olivia wasn't just trying to get Sophie fired; she was slowly poisoning his entire family against an innocent young woman, creating an airtight narrative so that when the final blow landed, everyone would applaud her removal.
He didn't storm into the kitchen.
He didn't bang on the window or scream at his fiancée.
May you like
Instead, he quietly backed down the steps, got back into his car, and drove down to a local electronics supply shop.
If Olivia wanted to play dirty games with hidden agendas and fabricated evidence, Michael was going to give her a front-row seat to how real investigations worked.
