Chapter 3 - Shards of Glass and Stolen Pearls
The ballroom descended into outright panic.
Society guests, who had spent the last two hours sipping vintage champagne and sneering at my presence, were now whispering frantically into their smartphones, calling their brokers, their drivers, and their publicists. A room full of high-society predators had instantly recognized the scent of a carcass, and the carcass belonged to Arthur Hayes.
"Julian!" Allison shrieked, turning to her new husband and grabbing his lapels with desperate, trembling hands. "Do something! Tell him he can't do this! Your father is a senator! You're a Ross! Tell them they can't embarrass us like this!"
Julian looked at her hands on his lapels as if they were venomous spiders. Slowly, deliberately, he peeled her fingers off his tuxedo and stepped back.
"Julian?" Allison’s voice cracked into a shrill, hysterical whine.
"My father’s campaign," Julian said, his voice shaking with pure, unadulterated venom, "relies on a three-million-dollar endorsement from the Sterling Foundation. My firm’s entire waterfront development is financed through Aegis Capital." He looked at Allison with absolute disgust. "You told me your family was solvent. You told me your sister was an embarrassment who was trying to leech off your success!"
"She is!" Allison screamed, tears finally cutting black tracks through her mascara. "Look at her! She’s doing this to ruin my wedding! She’s jealous of me! She’s always been jealous of me!"
"Shut up, Allison!" Julian roared, loud enough that half the ballroom fell silent once more. "She isn't jealous of you! You just made me marry into a bankrupt family and insult the most powerful woman in this city!"
Edward Ross, the patriarch of the Ross family, shoved his way through the crowd. He was a silver-haired politician with a face that usually radiated manufactured warmth, but right now, his eyes were bulging with terror.
"Nicholas," Edward said, completely ignoring Arthur Hayes and extending a hand toward my husband. "Nicholas, please. Julian was unaware of the family dynamic here. The Ross family had no part in this disgraceful display. We didn't know."
Nicholas didn't take the man’s hand. He didn't even look at it.
"Senator," Nicholas said, his voice smooth and detached. "Your son stood on that platform for ten minutes while Arthur Hayes used a public sound system to humiliate my wife. He laughed when the wine hit her dress. I saw the footage from the lobby screens."
Edward’s face turned from pale to ash gray. "Nicholas, he was caught off guard—"
"The Sterling Foundation’s endorsement is formally withdrawn," Nicholas said flatly. "And Marcus has already notified our underwriting desk to issue a margin call on the waterfront project at eight o'clock tomorrow morning."
"No!" Julian choked out, sinking into the nearest chair, holding his head in his hands.
Eleanor was trembling from head to toe, looking around at the ruins of her social empire. She turned her wild, frantic eyes toward me.
"Meredith," she said, her voice dropping into a sickening, theatrical weep. She took two trembling steps toward me, her arms outstretched. "Meredith, my darling girl... how could you let this happen? You know how stressed your father has been! You know his heart isn't strong! We didn't mean those things... it was just a joke! A family misunderstanding! Tell Nicholas to stop this. You're a Hayes! This family gave you everything!"
I looked at the woman who had given birth to me.
I looked at the diamond-encrusted pearl necklace resting against her collarbone—the necklace that had belonged to my grandmother, the only person in this family who had ever loved me. When Grandmother died seven years ago, Eleanor had sworn the necklace had been lost during the estate probate.
She had given it to Allison that morning as a "something borrowed."
"You didn't give me everything, Mother," I said, my voice ice-cold, devoid of any anger, which terrified her far more than screaming ever could. "You took my college fund to buy Allison a horse she rode twice. You took Grandmother's trust fund to pay for Allison’s debutante ball in Paris. And when I left Boston with eight hundred dollars in a checking account and two suitcases, you told the family I had run off with a mechanic because you were too ashamed to admit I refused to let Dad sell me off to a sixty-year-old shipping magnate."
Eleanor’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a dying fish.
"You called me a pathetic, lying spinster ten minutes ago," I continued, stepping closer to her. "You laughed when twelve glasses of wine hit my skin. You enjoyed it, Eleanor. You’ve spent thirty-two years making sure I knew I was nothing more than an ugly shadow to your golden child."
I reached out, my fingers sliding beneath the clasp of my grandmother’s pearl necklace.
Eleanor froze.
With a swift, clean twist of my wrist, I unhooked the platinum safety catch and slid the cool pearls from her neck into the palm of my hand.
"This belonged to Grandmother Vance," I said, slipping the pearls into the pocket of Nicholas’s tuxedo jacket. "It never belonged to you. And neither did I."
Arthur Hayes took a step toward me, his hands raised in surrender. "Meredith... please. We’re your parents. You can’t leave us like this. Look around! What are people going to say?"
"They’re going to say you shouldn't have bitten the hand that was feeding you," I said.
Nicholas wrapped his arm securely around my waist, pulling me close against his side. He looked over the ruined ballroom one last time, his voice ringing out with effortless authority.
"The doors will be locked in ten minutes," Nicholas announced to the room. "The Boston Police Department and the hotel’s legal counsel are already in the lobby to handle the unpaid balance of this event. Anyone remaining inside will be cited for trespassing on behalf of Aegis Capital, the leaseholder of this commercial wing."
He turned me away from the wreckage of my family.
"Let’s go home, Meredith," Nicholas whispered against my hair.
"Yes," I said. "Let’s."
May you like
As we walked toward the double doors, the sound of my sister’s hysterical weeping echoed behind us, followed by the furious, panicked shouts of Arthur Hayes begging for mercy from a crowd that was already trampling each other to reach the exits.
***
