Chapter 18
Next afternoon, everything started smooth like nothing ugly ever touched my life.
I sat beside Celeste under the white parasols while soft violin music floated around the garden like silk in the wind. The older women smiled politely when I made a comment about how champagne was just overpriced regret in a bottle. One even laughed so hard her pearls jiggled, and I thought, maybe this was what it felt like to belong. To sit at a table and not flinch. To not be waiting for a slap or a cruel remark hidden behind a smile.
I caught Ephraim watching me from the terrace steps, his hand tucked in his pocket, and his mouth twitching like he was trying not to grin. I gave him a small look, nothing too obvious, and he winked like a bastard. Celeste leaned over and said, “You’re already making more friends in one hour than I have in ten years.”
One of the ladies, with skin tight as wax and too many diamonds clinging to her fingers, whispered to Celeste like I was too far to hear, “She’s too poised for someone with that history.”
Celeste didn’t even blink. She took a sip of her drink, looked the woman straight in the face, and said, “Exactly why she belongs here.”
I didn’t flinch. I just reached for my lipstick and excused myself.
The powder room smelled like roses and lavender and expensive secrets. I stood in front of the old–fashioned vanity mirror, fixing my lipstick, breathing slowly. My hands were steady now. They used to shake. Not anymore.
Then the door creaked.
I saw her reflection before I turned. Mrs. Massaro. Torren’s mother. Still trying to look younger than her lies. She closed the door behind her and locked it with a slow click, like we were in a cheap thriller and she thought I would cower.
She leaned back against the door and crossed her arms. Her smile was tight and cruel.
“You climbed out of a grave and straight into another man’s bed,” she said like her words could bruise me. “At least pretend you have shame, you little bitch.”
I kept applying my lipstick. Didn’t look at her. I didn’t need to.
“You think changing your name makes you one of them?” she hissed. “You’ll always be trash. Just a prettier kind of garbage.”
I capped my lipstick slowly and turned to face her.
My heels clicked once across the marble, then again.
I didn’t raise my voice.
I just slapped her.
Hard.
The sound echoed in the powder room like a gunshot. Her head snapped sideways and
He left Me for Dead Now He Reas Me for Mercy
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she stumbled back into the sink. One of her diamond earrings flew off and landed near the
trash bin.
She clutched her face like I’d broken her bone, and I hoped I had.
“Careful, Mrs. Massaro,” I said, voice low. “I’m no longer your son’s wife.”
She stared at me, wide–eyed and shaking.
“I’m a Lambert now,” I said. “And in one snap, I can erase your entire bloodline. Don’t test
me.”
Her lip trembled.
She lunged.
It was clumsy and slow, too desperate to be dangerous. I caught her wrist mid–air and slapped her again, harder this time. Her head hit the mirror and her hair got tangled in the pins. She gasped, and I leaned in.
“Try that again and I’ll make sure you disappear from every guest list in this city. I’ll buy the clubs. I’ll buy the people who run them. You’ll be standing in the parking lot with a fake smile and nobody will remember your name.”
The door opened suddenly.
T
Celeste walked in like she already knew what happened. She glanced at Mrs. Massaro fixing her hair, face red and flustered.
“Is there a problem?” Celeste asked with a tilt of her head.
Mrs. Massaro opened her mouth but nothing came out.
I stepped forward, smooth and calm.
“She was just leaving,” I said.
Celeste nodded like that and settled it. She placed a hand on my back gently. Not like a warning. Like comfort.
“You handled it well,” she said. “The old families always test the new ones.”
I nodded and took a breath. My heart wasn’t even racing.
A few minutes later, Ephraim met me by the hedge archway and glanced at Mrs. Massaro’s face. He whistled under his breath.
“She looks like she met a freight train,” he said with a smirk. “Did I miss all the fun?”
I arched a brow and sipped my champagne.
“She tried to slap me,” I said.
He leaned in, his mouth brushing my ear.
“I knew you’d look good with blood on your hands.”
I smiled. Not sweet. Not innocent. Just mine.
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It started with that damn phone call from my mother.
She was screaming like a banshee, yelling how Therese slapped her not once but twice.
Said her cheek was still swollen and she was humiliated in front of Celeste Lambert. I
didn’t even care about the slap, to be honest. What got under my skin was the fact that Therese walked away from it like she won. Like she had the right to lift her hand in front of everyone and act like she was untouchable.
Then came the photos.
I saw them online that afternoon. Therese in that white silk dress standing beside Ephraim fucking Lambert like she was born with gold in her blood. His hand on her waist. Her lips soft with a smile I never got. Her fingers tangled with his.
The handprint on my mother’s face. The ring on her finger. The smirk on her lips.
I started drinking before dinner. I was in my home office by nine. The lights were off and the curtains drawn. The only thing glowing was my phone screen as I watched old videos of her and Cleo. Back when I used to think she was mine. Back when she wore my name and kissed me in public like she meant it. Back when I thought she was just an orphan with
no roots.
But that was a lie, too. She’s a Calderon. She’s old money. She’s war–blooded. She played me like a goddamn violin.
I kept watching the same clip. Cleo’s birthday last year. Therese was singing, hair tied back, holding the cake. She looked soft and stupid in love.
Now she looks like a fucking queen.
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