The Heiress They Humiliated: Cut My Dress, Lose Everything

Halfway through my engagement party, the new designer Ethan had just signed took a pair of tailor's shears to my gown and cut it to ribbons.

"A high neck? Please. You're not exactly a swan. This just makes you look like you don't have a neck."

"And this length? Are you going to a funeral? Dresses are supposed to show some leg. It's the twenty-first century."

She spun the shears around one finger and winked at me.

"Don't look at me like that, Miss Hart. Ethan told me himself when he signed me—when inspiration hits, I can change whatever I want. Consider this my engagement gift to you both."

The band stopped playing. Two hundred guests turned to stare.

Ethan pushed through the crowd, and the first thing he did wasn't check on me. He stepped in front of her.

"Bella, babe, deep breaths. Chloe's a genius—I stole her straight out of Parsons. She's twenty-two, she's just like this. Don't take it personally, okay?"

I watched him shield her, and it felt like a fist to the chest. Somehow, I laughed.

"Sure." I looked down at the scraps hanging off my body. "Catherine Laurent spent four months sewing this dress for me by hand. It's appraised at three million dollars. She cut it. She pays for it."

Ethan opened his mouth.

I didn't let him speak. "Also, we can skip the ceremony tonight."

"Ha!"

Chloe clapped a hand over her mouth, but her eyes were laughing.

"Oh my God, Ethan, is she serious? She's calling off the engagement over a dress? That's so dramatic."

Ethan's smile started to crack.

"Bella, that's enough. Chloe is the face of next season. I promised her creative freedom. You're putting me in a really bad position here."

When he turned to Chloe, his voice went soft as butter.

"Chlo, Bella doesn't really get avant-garde. Just throw her a bone, okay? Say sorry and we all move on."

Chloe sighed, like she was humoring a toddler.

"Fine. I don't think art should have to apologize, but… you're the boss."

She tilted her head at me.

"I'm so sorry, princess. I shouldn't have challenged your, um… vintage taste. Happy now?"

"Ethan." My voice was shaking. "Are you serious? She destroyed my dress in front of two hundred people, and that's her apology? You're just going to let it go?"

"Enough, Bella!" He grabbed my arm through gritted teeth, hard—a warning to swallow it.

I shook him off. He grabbed me again, and this time he yanked.

My heel twisted, and I went down.

Rrrip.

What was left of the skirt split at the waist. A strap snapped. I had to clutch the bodice to my chest to keep myself covered.

A wave of gasps went through the room. Someone already had their phone up.

Ethan froze. On instinct, he shrugged out of his suit jacket and bent toward me.

Chloe rubbed her bare arms.

"Achoo! God, is this place a freezer? I can't feel my hands."

Ethan's hand stopped in midair.

Then he turned around, wrapped the jacket around Chloe instead, and tugged the lapels closed under her chin.

"If you're cold, say something, silly."

He said it like it hurt him. Like he was angry at himself for not noticing sooner.

For ten years, I was the only one he'd ever worried about like that. At least, that's what I'd always believed.

I was wrong.

Sitting there on the cold marble floor, I felt the tears finally come. I blinked hard—I didn't want anyone to see—but they fell anyway, one after another, onto what was left of my dress.

I'd loved him since I was seventeen. Ten whole years.

"Ugh, I'm not made of glass." Chloe snuggled into the jacket and smiled up at him. "Hey, you said you'd introduce me to Margaret Holloway tonight. You weren't lying, right?"

"Of course not." Ethan ruffled her hair. "Why do you think I made the engagement party this big?"

My heart dropped straight through the floor.

Margaret Holloway—for forty years, the most powerful woman in New York fashion. She was my mother's godmother. The only reason she'd come tonight was the Hart name.

I'd spent six months planning this party. And the whole time, I'd been building Chloe a stage.

Of course. Everyone knew Isabella Hart was the sweet, easygoing good girl. Say something nice and she'd get over it. What was a little humiliation?

Across the ballroom, a man in a black suit stood at the bar. He hadn't taken his eyes off us. Slowly, he set down his glass and said nothing.

"Ethan." He was about to walk off with his arm around Chloe when I said his name.

He looked back, still wearing the smile he'd given her. The second he saw me, it turned into a frown.

"What now? Get off the floor, Bella, everyone's staring. Go upstairs and change. Be back down in ten."

I grabbed the edge of the champagne tower and pulled myself up, inch by inch.

Then I slid the diamond off my left ring finger. Last Christmas, he'd gotten down on one knee on the ice at Rockefeller Center and put it there. I slapped it into his palm.

"We're done, Ethan." I looked him dead in the eye. "It's over."