I Don't Forgive. I Don't Forget. I Get Even.

The day I got engaged to Nicholas—heir to one of the most powerful families—the ballroom buzzed with socialites. Everyone was all smiles, clinking glasses, and offering congratulations as if it were the social event of the year.

Then my biological mother, Dianna, took the microphone, a bright, practiced smile plastered on her face.

“Thank you all for coming, but there’s something I feel compelled to confess—as her mother.”

She maintained her smile, as if she were about to share a charming family anecdote.

“My eldest daughter, Kathleen, led a very… complicated private life while studying abroad. She even secretly gave birth to a stillborn baby, and the father’s identity remains unknown.”

The entire room fell silent.

I stared at her, breathless. It felt as though the blood in my veins had reversed course, surging violently into my skull.

Nicholas, thankfully, wasn’t fooled. He immediately confronted my mother, asserting she had no right to speak about me in such a manner.

Afterward, in the dressing room, she clutched my hands, weeping as if her heart were breaking.

“I just wanted to see if he truly loved you!” she sobbed. “Kathleen, you have to understand—I did it for your own good!”

I was naive back then. Naive enough to believe that repulsive lie.

I drank the cup of calming tea she personally brought me.

And when I opened my eyes the next morning, my entire world crumbled.

I was sprawled in my bedroom, my clothes disheveled.

And the man beside me—

was my sister Valerie’s boyfriend.

Scott.

A loud bang rattled the room as the door was violently kicked open.

Nicholas stormed in. The moment he saw me, his eyes blazed red, as if something inside him had snapped.

“So your mother wasn’t lying after all,” he sneered, looking at me as if I were filth. “You really are a slut.”

He hurled the gift he’d brought—something clearly intended for me—straight into my face.

Valerie rushed in right behind him, crying as she slapped Scott hard across the cheek.

“How could you do this to me?”

Scott snatched up the clothes nearby—clothes that still carried my scent—and tore them apart as if he couldn’t bear to touch anything that had been on me.

“I’ve never seen a woman as cheap as you,” he spat, jabbing a finger directly at my nose.

I turned to my mother, sobbing, my eyes pleading with her to say something—anything.

She stood there calmly, her expression utterly unchanged.

“Your sister is more suitable to be the wife of an heir,” she stated.

In the end, the “wedding of the century” that had captivated the entire city…

the bride was my sister, Valerie.

And I became the dirtiest joke in high society. My family cast me out without a second thought.

Like a a stray dog.

Twenty years later.

Tonight’s private dinner exudes opulence.

I sit at the head of the table. Around me, people speak in hushed, cautious tones. No one dares to laugh too loudly. No one dares to meet my gaze for more than a fleeting second.

Because I’m no longer the Kathleen who used to be trampled, to cry, and to beg.

There’s blood on my hands. There are bones beneath my feet. And I hold the financial fate of everyone in this room.

“Mother.”

A clear voice slices through the suffocating silence.

My son.

Louis.

He walks in with a young, beautiful girl on his arm.

She’s in a white, custom-made gown—like a freshly bloomed white rose, soft and flawless on the surface.

But that face—

I’d recognize it even if it were reduced to ashes.

It’s the same face Valerie had twenty years ago when she wore my wedding dress and held my fiancé’s arm.

This girl is Valerie’s daughter.

Yasmine.

A top Harvard graduate.

“Mother, this is Yasmine.”

Louis stops in front of me, his gaze openly filled with love. When he looks at her, it’s as if she’s the most precious thing on earth.

“If you approve of her,” he says, “we’ll get engaged.”

Every pair of eyes in the room quietly converges on us, like an incoming tide.

Yasmine lifts her chin slightly. Her smile is confident, proud—as if rejection is a concept she’s never had to grasp.

All her life, whatever she desired, was simply handed to her.

She looks at me sweetly, with even a hint of certainty in her eyes. As if she believes her background and beauty make this a foregone conclusion.

I set my wineglass down.

“I don’t approve.”

My voice neither rises nor falls, yet it lands with the force of a hammer.

Yasmine’s smile shatters instantly, right there in front of everyone.

The guests freeze, exchanging uneasy glances.

Even Louis stands still, shock flashing across his face.

“Mother…” He stares at me, brows tightly furrowed. “When I mentioned Yasmine before, you said you liked her.”

I lean back against the velvet chair. “I hadn’t met her. Now I have.”

A small, suppressed ripple of murmurs spreads through the hall.

Yasmine is the social circle’s perfect golden girl—pretty enough to be a campus queen anywhere she goes. She perfectly inherited her mother’s face, the kind people naturally gravitate toward.

But in front of me, that proud little self-esteem of hers is tossed to the floor and crushed under my heel.

Yasmine bites her lip so hard it almost turns white. Her eyes instantly redden.

Her face flushes, her shoulders trembling with anger and humiliation.

“Ms. Steel,” she demands, her voice tight, “is my etiquette wrong? Is my outfit inappropriate? Or something else?”

Her volume spikes, sharp and shrill. “Just tell me. I’ll fix it!”

I don’t even bother lifting my eyelids.

“You don’t need to fix anything.”

I pick up the glass of cold tea beside me and take a slow sip.

“As long as I’m alive, you will never set foot in our family’s home.”

“Ms. Steel,” someone at the table says, feigning bravery, “perhaps you haven’t heard—Yasmine’s grandmother is a renowned philanthropist, respected both domestically and internationally. She’s helped countless people.”

“Yes,” another person quickly chimes in. “She’s a good girl. You don’t need to worry about her character.”

Well.

I laugh coldly to myself.

So after twenty years, my dear mother is still working this hard—so hard she even paved the way for my sister’s child.

And their family is still treated with kid gloves by this circle, still carefully protected and praised.

Louis panics. He releases Yasmine’s hand and steps forward, positioning himself between us as if to shield her from my words.

“Mother, did Yasmine do something wrong?”

“It has nothing to do with that.” I set the teacup down.

Yasmine finally breaks.

Tears well up in her eyes, refusing to fall, as if she’s still desperately clinging to dignity.

“Why?” she cries. “Why won’t you let Louis get engaged to me? What’s wrong with me—tell me!”