Chapter 246
246:
“Why’s your dad so dead set against you looking into it?” Katie pressed on.
A bitter laugh escaped Thea. “He says I ticked off someone way out of my league and that I should keep my head down for now. Like that’s supposed to make me feel any better.” Thea’s cheek still burned with the memory of that slap, her fury mounting with every passing second.
Upon hearing that, Katie’s pulse spiked with anxiety. Even Thea’s father was too afraid to investigate. Was she expected to just swallow her humiliation? Absolutely not! She refused to let this go. Someone would pay for this indignity. She forced her trembling hand to steady, resolve hardening. If she could just win over the Hubbard family, she’d gain the power to strike back. With their backing, whoever orchestrated her humiliation would regret ever crossing her.
A sly grin crept across Thea’s face as she nudged Katie, eyes glinting with mischief. “Look over there,” she whispered, inclining her head toward a dimly lit corner. “Isn’t that your ex-sister-in-law trying to melt into the shadows?”
Katie spotted Christina instantly, and her lips curled into a sneer. “Trust my luck to run into that harbinger of bad news tonight.”
“How did she manage an invite?” Thea asked. “Did she worm her way in through some sketchy back channel?”
“No doubt about it,” Katie muttered, her mind flashing back to the angry red marks she’d spent minutes concealing with makeup. Resentment simmered in her eyes.
Thea, eager to vent her frustration at being shunned, smirked slightly. “Come on—let’s go liven things up for her.”
Katie’s temper simmered dangerously close to boiling over. The sting of being publicly humiliated by Christina at the gate of Cloudcrest Heights clung to her, fueling her need for payback and a shot at redemption. Now, with Thea’s words ringing in her ears, her lips curled into a sly smile.
Katie and Thea exchanged a conspiratorial glance and drifted across the banquet hall, their excitement barely masked behind feigned nonchalance. In a secluded corner, Christina had found a sliver of peace, not expecting that relentless adversaries were circling for another round.
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At the same time, Eloise—freshly styled and radiant—wove through the glittering crowd, scanning faces, her heart pounding with anticipation as she searched for Christina. She longed to seek Christina out right away and couldn’t wait for the party to kick off. Christina was different—someone who’d wanted to be her friend with no strings attached, no questions asked.
Eloise clung to the hope that this time, she might finally have a real friend who saw her, not her family’s name. If this fragile connection held, Christina would become the first person to care for her without ulterior motives—a rarity in her world of counterfeit affection.
Too many times, Eloise had dared to trust, only to watch supposed friends twist the knife, delighting in her pain as they tore her trust apart piece by piece. Eloise’s wide-eyed sweetness and the soft pink of her princess dress made her look like a life-sized Barbie—dreamy, gentle, and utterly harmless. The dress itself, custom-made for her eighteenth birthday and expertly tailored to her predicted adult measurements, still hugged her shape perfectly even after all these years.
Her family had offered to buy her something new, dismissing the gown as a sentimental relic, but Eloise refused to trade it away. This dress, her very first princess gown, marked her coming of age—a memory she cherished fiercely. Each year, her family had prepared birthday gifts, but it wasn’t until now, over twenty years later, that she received them in person. Their unwavering search for her was the single reassurance that soothed the old ache of insecurity in her heart. She hadn’t been cast aside for her mark on the forehead or her lost voice.
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.
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