Chapter 2

I stood numbly in the corner. The party music surged around me like a tide, threatening to suffocate me.

After a moment, I decided I couldn't just stand there doing nothing.

I took a deep breath, swallowed the rising nausea, and told myself: Go find Alexander and demand the truth. Even if it makes a huge scene, I have to know if what he just said is really true.

I followed the flow of people back into the banquet hall.

The music, the dazzling lights, and the heavy scent of perfume rushed at me, but I felt as if I were separated from it all by a pane of thick glass. I could only stand mechanically at the edge of the crowd, my eyes fixed dead on the second-floor staircase.

A familiar silhouette soon appeared on the stairs.

Alexander adjusted his cuffs and stepped down.

His formal suit was impeccable, his expression as composed as ever, looking as though he had just stepped out of a routine family meeting.

My heart leaped into my throat. I was just about to raise my hand to call out to him.

But his gaze swept right over the hall, completely bypassing me as if I didn't exist, and landed precisely on the other side—on Vivienne.

He skirted around the crowd I was standing in and walked straight toward her by the fireplace.

My hand froze midway in the air. Stiffly, I forced my body to walk toward the two of them.

"Where did you go? I was looking for you for ages." Vivienne looked up at him, her voice pitched just loud enough for the people around them to hear.

"Handling a minor issue." Alexander's tone was incredibly gentle. He casually took a drink from a passing waiter and handed it to her. "It's a bit chilly upstairs. Don't wander off by yourself next time."

"But I have you," she laughed, her fingertips brushing against the back of his hand as if by accident.

Their closeness was so intimate it looked like a scene rehearsed countless times.

People around them chuckled softly, murmuring things like, "Childhood sweethearts are just a perfect match," and, "A textbook example of family alliances." Their gazes naturally drifted to me as I approached, their eyes full of blatant scrutiny and a tacit, shared amusement.

Some were mocking.

Some were pitying.

But they all looked at me like I was a clueless, awkward outsider.

A sudden pang of pain hit the magic core in my chest. My knuckles turned white from clenching, but I still forced a seemingly calm smile, squeezed through the edge of the crowd, and came to stand before them.

Alexander finally looked at me directly.

I looked up, trying my best to keep my voice steady. "Darling, where did you disappear to just now? I couldn't find you—"

I only got halfway through my sentence before his brow furrowed, looking deeply annoyed.

"Elena, what do you mean by that?" His tone ran ice-cold. "I only excuse myself for a moment, and you have to chase me down with questions?"

I bit my lip, forcing back the agony in my heart. "I just cared—"

"Cared?" he scoffed. "Is this caring, or is this a surveillance? I took a quick trip upstairs, and you stand here with a dark face waiting to interrogate me?"

"I'm not surveilling you." I was taken aback by his hostility. "I just didn't see you, so I was worried whether you were—"

"Whether I was fooling around with other women?" he finished my sentence for me, speaking faster and cuttingly thin. "Elena, aren't you going a little too far? Vivienne and I grew up together. You insist on reading filth into our relationship. Is it because your own mind is dirty, or do you assume everyone is as hypersensitive and paranoid as you are?"

The air around us went dead silent for a few seconds.

I heard hushed whispers from the bystanders: "She actually dares to be jealous of Vivienne?"

"A girl from the slums, her horizons are just that limited."

"No wonder the Fenwick family despises Mudbloods like her."

Those whispers were like microscopically fine needles, piercing me from all directions.

"Don't say that." Vivienne lightly touched Alexander's arm and looked at me, speaking with the magnanimity of the real girlfriend. "Elena might just care too much about you. Waiting for you here all alone, she must've been so anxious."

She looked at me, flashing a deeply worried smile. "I can understand that kind of insecurity... It's just that, Alexander is so busy. You need to learn to trust him, instead of interrogating him every time. Doing that will just make him exhausted."

Every single word she uttered sounded like she was defending me, yet they only nailed the labels of "hypersensitive," "insecure," and "mistrustful" more permanently onto my forehead.

Alexander glanced at her, his eyes softening slightly. But when he looked back at me, the coldness was even sharper.

"Did you hear her?" he said, as if scolding a petulant child. "Vivienne is even making excuses for you. I was busy, not missing. There's no need for you to be so deliberately unreasonable."

"I'm not..." my voice tightened. "I just wanted to ask, were you—"

"Enough, Elena." He cut me off instantly. "If you want to throw a tantrum, we can talk about it when we get back. Do you have absolutely no sense of what kind of occasion we are at?"

He shifted slightly, deliberately establishing another half-step of distance between us, while pointedly not pulling away from where Vivienne leaned against his arm. It made it perfectly clear to everyone at a single glance who was truly "one of his own."

"Giving me attitude in front of all these people—do you think I'll always just tolerate it?" Alexander warned. "I spoil you normally because I choose to, not because it's some bargaining chip for you to use."

"I—"

"Apologize." His tone brokered no argument. "For your baseless questions just now, and for your disrespect toward Vivienne."

My throat felt like it was being crushed, and the magic core in my chest throbbed with agony, as if it were about to shatter completely.

The eyes of everyone in the room were pinned entirely on me.

Vivienne shook her head gently. "Forget it, Alexander, I don't mind. Elena is just insecure..."

Her saying "I don't mind" only made all of this look even more like I was just being hysterical.

But Alexander had no intention of letting it go. "She needs to learn time and place for what she says." His gaze was as hard as cold sealing wax. "Elena, your behavior today has crossed the line."

I opened my mouth, but not a single sound could climb out.

At that moment, it suddenly became crystal clear to me—in his eyes, I didn't even have the right to a dignified exit.

The snickering around us arose once again before quickly being hushed, turning into a continuous, muffled buzz beneath the blaring music.

I couldn't bear this humiliation for a second longer. Digging my fingers into my palms, I turned around and stumbled out of the banquet hall.

Behind me, Vivienne was still asking in her perfectly innocent tone, "What's wrong with her? Did I do something wrong?"