Ficorpio
Chapter 1
I had just rung up the sale when the smiling customer’s expression froze.
A second later, she was glaring at me as if I had done something obscene.
“You’re disgusting!”
She grabbed the bag off the counter and stormed out, leaving me standing there with no idea what had just happened.
At first, I assumed she was going to file a complaint. But the moment she looked at the floral dress again, her face turned strange—twisted with a kind of horror that made no sense.
“This is revolting,” she snapped. “Who would buy something like this?”
I forced myself to stay professional and tried to calm her down.
But then her eyes landed on the dress another woman was wearing nearby. The color drained from her face. She pointed at me and shouted, “How could you do this? How could you do something like that?”
That was when I realized something was wrong.
It wasn’t normal for someone to suddenly lose control over a dress.
The coworker on the other end of the phone sounded close to tears.
“Claire, you have to come over. She’s still causing a scene. We can’t calm her down.”
“What exactly happened?” I asked.
“There are a lot of people here now. At first, everyone agreed there was nothing wrong with the dress.”
She took a shaky breath.
“But the second I said you’d bought it for your daughter, they all went crazy.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she went on. “The customer is demanding a refund, and she’s saying you’re a terrible person. People are filming. If this gets posted online…”
My head began to throb.
“Send me a picture,” I said quickly. “Let me see what kind of dress it is.”
A few seconds later, my phone buzzed.
I opened the photo and stared at it for a long moment.
It was an ordinary floral dress.
Nothing revealing. Nothing inappropriate. Just a simple, fresh-looking dress covered in small flowers.
I let out a breath. “I don’t care who’s there. I can guarantee you there is absolutely nothing wrong with this dress. If anyone wants to argue, let them argue with me.”
Even as I said it, I knew the situation wasn’t that simple.
It was only a dress. At worst, people might disagree over taste.
But the reaction on the phone wasn’t disgust at a bad design.
It was hatred.
My coworker lowered her voice. “Claire, are you sure you didn’t buy this dress for Lily?”
“I bought the dress myself,” I said. “I checked it before I paid. There was nothing wrong with it. It’s just a normal floral dress.”
The more I spoke, the more frustrated I became.
“And besides, even if the dress was ugly, that’s still my business. Why is everyone acting like I committed a crime?”
I was still talking when the noise on the other end of the line suddenly changed.
The shouting stopped.
Then my coworker asked, very carefully, “This dress… you really bought it for your daughter?”
Chapter 2
The instant she said those words, my heart dropped.
Because I had heard that sentence before.
Every time someone asked whether the floral dress was for my daughter, their attitude changed completely.
I realized it almost at the same time my coworker’s voice turned cold.
“You make me sick,” she said. “I can’t believe I ever knew you.”
“What kind of mother are you? How could you treat your own child like that?”
Then she hung up.
By the time I tried calling back, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone.
In that instant, all the strength went out of my legs.
I slid down onto the floor.
What the hell was going on?
By the time I got back to the Whitmore home from the café, Adrian and my mother were already packing.
The moment Adrian saw me, his face went cold. Without a word, he dragged my suitcase out and threw it at my feet.
My breath caught. I rushed forward and grabbed his sleeve, trying to keep my voice steady. “Adrian, I really didn’t do this. I didn’t hurt Lily. Maybe something went wrong. Maybe someone misunderstood what happened with that dress. Can’t we just talk this through?”
I truly couldn’t understand it.
How had one floral dress turned everyone against me?
“Please,” I begged. “If you’re going to leave, at least give me an answer first. Tell me why.”
Adrian didn’t answer. He only jerked his arm free.
I was angry too. Terrified, humiliated, desperate—but still I forced it down and reached for him again.
This time, before I could speak, his hand closed around my throat.
He shoved me hard into the wall.
The impact knocked the air from my lungs. His fingers tightened, brutal and merciless, and for one horrifying second, I thought he might actually kill me.
My mother stood a few steps away, watching everything unfold. Her eyes were red, but she didn’t come forward. She didn’t say a single word for me.
Only when my vision began to blur did Adrian finally let go.
I dropped to the floor, coughing, clutching at my throat.
He looked down at me as if he were staring at something disgusting.
“Claire Bennett,” he said, his voice flat with contempt, “you make me sick. Are you really still going to keep pretending?”
I stared at him—the man who had once shared my bed, my home, my whole life—and for the first time, he looked like a stranger.
No matter how cruel he had become, I had never believed he could look at me with that much hatred.
But now?
Now I had seen it with my own eyes.
Something inside me snapped.
“That’s enough!” I shouted, my voice raw. “All of this because of one floral dress? Fine. From now on, I’ll never buy Lily another dress again. Is that what you want?”
Chapter 3
I didn’t understand. If they hated me, they could say so. If they wanted me gone, they could drive me out.
But why accuse me of something so vicious? Why turn me into a monster?
My words came out broken, almost incoherent. I had no proof, no explanation, no way to defend myself.
Adrian only gave a cold laugh.
“Claire, if I were trying to frame you, would I have exposed you in front of the whole family?”
His eyes swept over me, full of disgust.
“You’re the one with a rotten heart. You bought our daughter that dress, and now you still want to drag the rest of us down with you?”
He leaned closer, each word like a blade.
“I’ll tell you this right now. Whether you admit it or not, if this goes to court, the judge will only see you as an unfit mother. You’ll leave with nothing, and you can forget about keeping custody of Lily.”
The word custody froze the blood in my veins.
I turned away from him and crawled toward my mother. Grabbing her leg, I looked up at her through tears.
“Mom, please. You know me. You know I would never hurt Lily. Why are you treating me like this too?”
My voice cracked.
“Even if you all want me to leave, don’t I at least deserve to know why?”
For a moment, pain flickered across Evelyn’s face.
She had loved me once. I knew she had.
But she only sighed.
When she spoke, her words were sharper than Adrian’s.
“Lily is your daughter. Even if you were angry, even if you didn’t like something, you should never have taken it out on a child. How do you expect us to forgive you?”
I shook my head desperately. “I didn’t—”
“Adrian is still trying to protect your dignity,” she interrupted. “If you keep making a scene and this gets out, what do you think people will say? They’ll call you unstable. They’ll say you’re dangerous. Do you want to ruin Lily’s life too?”
Her expression hardened.
“You’re her mother. You’re not made of glass. If you refuse to admit your mistake, your daughter will be the one hurt in the end.”
She pulled her leg free.
“Choose for yourself.”
Then she turned and left with Adrian, both of them wearing the same cold expression as they walked out the door.
The suitcase lay beside me.
The house was suddenly too quiet.
I sat there on the floor, soaked in fear, doubt, and the kind of betrayal that made it hard to breathe.
I had to know what was happening.
I had to find the truth behind all of this.
So I picked up my phone and contacted a private investigator.
Miles Carter answered quickly. After I explained what little I knew, he agreed to take the case.
But investigating something this strange would not be easy.
And what I didn’t know then was that the truth waiting behind that floral dress would be far more terrifying than anything I had imagined.
On the way home, I deliberately stopped a few strangers and tested them.
When they saw Lily in the floral dress, none of them reacted strangely. A few even smiled and said the dress was pretty on her.