Chapter 8

Ella's POV

The crowd parted on its own, opening a path.

And she stepped through it.

"Mona."

The Shaw patriarch's voice was steadier now than it had been, as if he'd grabbed hold of a lifeline. He drew the girl to his side, and there was something in his tone I couldn't quite place—something almost like pride. "This is a girl our family sponsors. Grew up in the projects, waited tables, earned a full scholarship all on her own. Same school as Ella—top of her class, year after year. Well-mannered, hardworking. Every so often she even bakes little cakes and brings them by to see us."

He paused, as though afraid the crowd hadn't heard enough, then added, "I love this child like my own daughter."

And in those few sentences, every gaze in the hall quietly changed direction.

The scrutiny, the contempt, the hunger for a scandal that had all been fixed on the Shaws—it dissolved now into curiosity, into open appraisal, into something close to unspoken goodwill.

What a lovely girl.

I heard someone murmur it under their breath.

Only I stood there, looking at that face, a chill running through me again.

If I didn't already know what she would do to me, I probably would have felt the same warmth toward her that the rest of this room did—toward a girl so frail, and yet so unbroken.

But I knew.

In that asylum in the mountains of Switzerland.

While the current ran through my temples and tore me apart, she stood beside the bed, her voice soft and gentle, and the words coming out of it were the voice of a demon.

"Ella, don't struggle. You lived twenty years of my life—soft beds, full plates, a family that adored you. I spent those same years hungry, cold, and forgotten. Now I'm just giving you back everything I went through—with interest. It's only fair, isn't it?"

Blake was only the hand that carried it out. The one who'd truly masterminded my trip to the asylum was this girl standing right in front of me.

But her suffering was never my fault. When we were swapped at that hospital, I was nothing but a newborn—just as helpless, just as blameless as she was.

I snapped back to the present.

Something cold turned over in my stomach.

Before I could stop myself, I reached out and caught the hem of Cole's jacket, my fingertips trembling.

Right now, only at his side could I find a shred of steadiness.

He turned his head, his gaze dropping to my hand, and his brow creased—so faintly it was almost nothing.

He'd seen it.

My chest tightened, but it was already too late to pull my hand back.

Fine. Let him see. In his eyes I had always been that frightened little thing who needed someone to stand in front of her.

I forced my breathing steady.

I couldn't move on Mona yet.

For now, there was nothing between us that had risen to the surface. And I wanted nothing at all to do with her.

My goal had never been this petty mess inside the Hartford family.

My goal was the man beside me.

As for Mona—I wasn't about to waste a single word on her.

"Miss Hartford?"

She spoke softly, her voice soft as anything.

"Are you unwilling to forgive Zoey? Then… what would I have to do for you not to be upset?"

See—this was her talent.

One sentence, and she'd cast herself as the supplicant in the dust, while pinning me up on stage as the overbearing, unforgiving, cold society bride.

I didn't rise to it.

First I looked up at Cole—hesitant, careful, like a child who couldn't make up her mind, waiting for an adult to speak.

Then I made my voice soft and small.

"Uncle Cole… may I forgive her?"

The words were spoken for Mona to hear.

But the decision, I placed in his hands.

It gave the Shaws a way out, cast me as the sensible and gracious one, and let me test his stance in the same breath.

Cole said nothing.

He looked down at me, and there was nothing in those eyes at all, and still my heart skipped half a beat.

He was just about to open his mouth—

"Ella!"

An angry roar burst out of nowhere.

"I'm ordering you! Apologize to Mona and Zoey!"

Blake shoved his way out of the crowd, his face flushed red.

When the Shaws had been losing every last bit of standing a moment ago, he hadn't dared make a sound. Now he was the first one charging to the front. He strode over and planted himself beside Mona, and the whole posture of him screamed that he was desperate to play "the man with backbone" in front of her.

He raised his hand and pointed at me.

"You bullied my sister just now, and now you want to come after Mona too, is that it?"

"I'm telling you—if you dare touch a single hair on Mona's head—"

He said it word by word.

"I'll break off the engagement right this instant! I'll make you lose me for good!"

Lose him?

I nearly laughed out loud on the spot.

The whole time he said it, half his gaze was glued to Mona and the other half was busy passing judgment on me, as if "losing him" were the cruelest torture in this world—the one thing that would break me.

Hilarious.

I couldn't wait to lose him right now.

Disgusting.

But it wasn't the moment yet, so I put on the look of someone struck dumb and reeling from his words.

And only then did he notice, half a beat too late—I wasn't shrinking back where I stood. I was shrinking behind Cole.

His face changed again.

"Who is this man?"

His voice shot up, riding a ridiculous, offended sense of ownership.

"Why are you standing next to him?"

"Ella, remember your place!"

He stretched out his hand toward me, like a man calling a dog that should come back to heel.

"Come here."

I lifted my head.

I looked at Cole.

In that moment there was hope in me.

I hoped he'd be displeased. I hoped his face would go cold. I hoped he would, just as he had with the Shaw patriarch, pin Blake in place with a single offhand line.

I hoped he would stop me.

But Cole only glanced down at me.

And then he shifted, ever so slightly, to one side.

He opened the path.