Chapter 7

Ella's POV

Zoey came charging at me from the fountain, soaked head to toe.

One of her heels had gone missing somewhere, and she limped with every step. Her dress clung to her, drenched, and her ruined makeup ran down her cheeks in long streaks. If anything, she looked more pathetic now than she had thrashing in the water.

"Ella—I am going to tear you apart tonight—"

She lunged for me, arms flailing, but before she could reach me a low bark cut her off.

"Zoey!"

It was the Shaw patriarch. He shoved his way through the crowd and threw out a hand, and two men stepped in at once to seize the raving girl. The old man's heavy face folded into a smile that looked worse than crying, and he bowed to Cole again and again.

"Mr. Westmore, I'm terribly sorry. My daughter has no sense—making a fool of herself in front of you like this... it's inexcusable."

I stood beside Cole with my eyes lowered, my fingers twisting the damp corner of my dress. I stole a glance at Zoey, dripping like a drowned rat, and the smile I'd been fighting nearly slipped up to my lips—

Cole's gaze swept over me.

I pressed the smugness back down at once and slid right back into that startled, hunch-shouldered little lamb.

He didn't look at me again.

He turned toward the patriarch, his voice low.

"On the East Coast, is it a Shaw family tradition for a daughter to call her brother's fiancée a 'bitch' in public?"

He said it as calmly as if it were a genuine question awaiting an answer.

And yet that single sentence dropped the whole place into silence.

Was he... speaking up for me?

The patriarch's face changed in an instant. Without a moment's hesitation, he backhanded Zoey across the face—a sharp crack that rang out obscenely in the quiet.

I let myself drift a fraction closer to Cole's side, the corner of my mouth curving just slightly.

This feeling—having someone at your back—really was something.

Zoey stood stunned, a hand pressed to her cheek, tears mixing with the water still dripping off her, looking utterly pathetic. Then she jabbed a finger at me and shrieked.

"Father, how could you hit me? It was her! She's the one who pushed me into the water! Don't let that face of hers fool you!"

My eyes snapped to Cole.

But this time, he didn't say a word in my defense.

He only stood there, calm, his gaze resting on Zoey, giving away nothing at all.

Something inside me pulled tight with a hum.

Did he see it?

From that far away, sitting in that car—how much had he actually seen?

The thought flickered for only a second before I forced it down. I lowered my voice and spoke, timid and small.

"I didn't... Zoey, I only wanted to help you out of the water..."

Halfway through, I let out a perfectly timed sneeze, swaying on my feet—wretched and harmless all at once.

Zoey's voice cracked with fury. "Stop playing the fragile little thing! You took down all four of our bodyguards by yourself! In the greenhouse! They're lying there in a heap!"

A few people around us couldn't hold back a laugh.

"You mean Ella?" one woman said, hiding her mouth behind her hand. "You're telling us she—one girl, with those thin little arms—knocked out four grown men with her fists?"

"Miss Shaw must have swallowed too much water. It's gone to her head."

"Everyone knows Miss Hartford is gentle to a fault. Beat someone up? She's never so much as raised her voice."

"Miss Shaw, when you fell in, it was Ella who called for help to save you. If she'd really pushed you, why on earth would she scream for someone to pull you out?"

Maybe my image was simply too convincing.

Not a single soul there believed a word Zoey said.

Zoey was losing her mind, her voice sharp enough to cut. "Go—splash the bodyguards awake! Let them point her out themselves! I saw it with my own eyes—she's been faking the whole time, she's nothing but a—"

"Zoey." I lifted my face, all bewildered, wounded innocence, my eyes wide. "I really never saw any bodyguards. I just went to the greenhouse to look at the flowers, and when I came out you were already in the water..."

I paused, as if genuinely unable to make sense of it.

"And besides... if they were bodyguards, shouldn't they have been posted at the door? What would they be doing inside a greenhouse?"

That question broke her completely. She glared at me, chest heaving, and it burst out of her—

"Don't you dare play dumb! I sent them in there specifically to deal with y—"

The instant the words left her mouth, her own face went ashen.

The silence was so complete you could hear the fountain running.

I knew the rules of this world too well. Behind closed doors, play as dirty as you like. But drag those games into the light, where everyone can watch—and it stops being a quarrel. It becomes a scandal.

The guests traded glances, and the whispers spread like ripples across water, circling wider and wider. Every eye landed, all at once, on the Shaws.

It was mockery.

It was contempt.

It was the look people give something shameful.

I pressed my lips down, holding in the smugness that was about to leak out.

Beside me, Cole let out a low sound—the faintest scoff.

Sweat had beaded on the patriarch's forehead. Pinned by all those stares—or perhaps rattled by that single cold sound from Cole—he suddenly swung his hand up and struck Zoey across the face again.

"That's enough, Zoey! Apologize to Ella!"

I waved my hands quickly. "There's no need, no need, Mr. Shaw, it's fine, really. I'm sure Zoey's just rattled from the fall and talking nonsense... you know how it is, she's never been fond of me."

The more I said it was fine, the more panicked he got.

He backhanded her across the face once more.

"I said apologize to Ella! Do you hear me?"

Zoey's head snapped to the side, two red welts rising on her cheek, her eyes full of shock and hurt.

"Father, you actually don't believe me. How can you not believe me?"

She bit down hard on her lip and refused to say a single word of apology, tears spilling in fat drops. Then she wrenched free of the men holding her and ran off, sobbing.

The whole thing ground to a standstill.

The patriarch stood there with his hand still half-raised, stuck with nowhere to go; the guests watched the farce, and no one dared be the first to speak.

I kept my eyes lowered and stood there, quiet, while my mind raced through the tally. This round, Zoey had lost cleanly. The Shaw family had lost every last shred of face tonight.

And in the middle of that deadlock—

a clear, gentle woman's voice rose from beyond the crowd.

"Hello, Miss Hartford. Zoey's young, willful, she doesn't know any better..."

It wasn't loud, yet somehow it hushed the entire crowd, every head turning toward the sound.

"May I apologize to you on her behalf?"

The crowd parted on its own, opening a path.

I followed it with my eyes, and in that instant my breath seized, the cold creeping out to the very tips of my fingers.

It was her.

That face—I'd seen it countless times in the light of the matches. A low ponytail, a plain, understated suit, a faint, perfectly measured apologetic smile on her lips, humble and gracious, as if she'd never hurt a living soul.

Mona Carter.

the true heiress of the Hartford family.

She had finally come...