you lost your patience and finally raped her.”
He was clearly flustered, though he tried to hold on to his composure. “I did no such thing.”
“You drugged her, tied her to a bed in a hotel room.”
He shook his head.
“And you raped her.”
“It wasn’t rape. Melanie Birch was willing.”
Yolanda grinned. “I thought you didn’t know Melanie Birch.”
She got up and walked towards the door.
He got up, as well. “Wait, what is the meaning of this?”
“Oh, right, you’re not very smart, are you?” Yolanda said, turning around. “After all, the only reason you managed to get to the top is by bribing people and scaring them.”
“That is not true.”
“Let me spell the situation out for you, Mr. Carmichael.” She walked back towards him with a hand on her hip. “You are not going to bother me anymore.”
He just looked at her, still confused.
“From this moment on, you’re going to leave me alone, me and everyone I love. That includes Shane McFiggins.”
He snorted. “That boy can’t handle a woman like you, Yolanda.” He took a step closer to her and took a strand of her hair between his fingers. “He can’t give you all the things I can.”
She slapped his hand away. “You won’t lay a finger on me anymore. If you do, I’ll go to Maximilian Shaw and tell him everything I’ve found out about your company, including how you schemed your way to the top.”
“Maximilian Shaw?” His face grew pale at the mention of his business rival.
“The two of you have been at each other’s throats for years, right? I’m sure with the information I give him, he’ll be able to take you down.”
Roy just gritted his teeth.
“Oh, and whether or not you try to bother me from now on, I’ll be circulating the news about Melanie Birch and all those women you took against their will,” Yolanda added, enjoying the look on Roy’s face. “And unlike you, my stories are based on hard facts.”
“You’ll never be able to prove anything.”
She took out the small recorder in her pocket. “Well, I can prove you know Melanie Birch at least. You did mention her name a while ago.”
He clenched his fists. “Your stepbrother will never get his job back and your stepsister will lose her scholarship for good.”
“That’s fine.” Yolanda crossed her arms over her chest calmly. “I already got my stepbrother a new job and my stepsister a new scholarship. It turns out they both have really good qualifications.”
“You bitch,” he spat out at her. “You goddamned fat black bitch!”
She just grinned. “It seems you chose the wrong fat, black bitch to mess with.”
With those words, she turned on her heel.
“Oh, and by the way,” she added, stopping just before the dinner. “You’re still a guest on the show, only it’s not my show anymore. It’s Ms. Lambert’s. She’s a little tougher than me. But she recently got a tan. Who knows? The two of you might hit it off and then you’d end up being her fourth husband.”
Still grinning, she walked out of the room, feeling better than she ever had in a long while.
She had executed her plan perfectly and now, Roy Carmichael was not her problem anymore.
The nightmare was over.
~ ~ ~
“You should have seen the look on his face,” Yolanda told Shane an hour later as the two of them sat on her couch, celebrating with wine and cake. “He reminded me of a kid who had been caught trying to scoop out the goldfish.”
“Or trying to steal from the cookie jar,” Shane said.
“He looked helpless and ridiculous.”
“Which serves him just right.” Shane placed his arm around Yolanda and drew her closer to him. “Are you happy now?”
Yolanda nodded, placing her hand over one of his. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I doubt that. You were the one who thought about the whole plan and gathered all the information you needed.”
“But you were the one who gave me the strength to do all of it,” she told him,