“Someone is trying to destroy me.”
Margot sat in her old bedroom while Victoria brushed her hair the way she had when Margot was little.
“What happened?” Margot asked softly.
“False documents. Financial allegations. Things being taken out of context.”
“What kind of things?”
Preston paused.
Then came the shift. The concerned husband. The patronizing softness.
“You don’t need to worry about this. Just rest. Think of the baby.”
Margot looked at her mother in the mirror.
Victoria raised one eyebrow.
“Of course,” Margot said. “I trust you.”
She ended the call.
For the first time, she understood that those three words had not been love for a long time.
They had been surrender.
The night before the gala, Margot could not sleep.
She wandered through the halls of the Prescott house, past childhood photographs and rooms that smelled faintly of beeswax and lavender. In her old bedroom, everything remained almost exactly as she had left it: blue walls, white curtains, shelves full of novels, a framed photograph of her and Beckett at seventeen and twenty-two, laughing beside the family sailboat.
She sat on the bed and placed both hands on her belly.
“What if I fall apart?” she whispered.
A soft knock came.
The door opened.
Beckett stood there with two mugs of tea.
“I figured you were awake.”
She tried to smile. “Am I that predictable?”
“No. I’m that worried.”
They sat in the small upstairs sitting room where they had hidden as children during boring dinner parties. The moon washed the furniture silver. Beckett handed her the tea, extra honey, just as she liked it.
“I’m scared,” Margot admitted.
“I know.”
“What if he looks at me and I become stupid again?”
Beckett did not dismiss the fear.
“Then you become stupid for a minute,” he said. “And we stand beside you until you remember.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I pushed you all away.”
“You were being isolated. That is not the same thing.”
“I should have known.”
“You did know,” Beckett said gently. “Some part of you knew. But knowing and being ready are different things.”
Margot looked out at the moonlit lawn.
“He made me feel so small.”
Beckett reached over and took her hand.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “you walk in as yourself. That is all you have to do. Not punish him. Not perform strength. Just arrive as Margot Prescott. That will be enough.”
The gala was held in the grand ballroom of the Metropolitan Hotel, beneath chandeliers that scattered light over marble floors and champagne glasses. Four hundred guests filled the room: donors, board members, politicians, society wives, executives, journalists with velvet ropes pretending not to be journalists.
Preston stood near the front, immaculate in black tie.
Sloane stood too close beside him in a red gown, the stolen ring flashing on her finger.
The announcement was scheduled for nine.
At 8:12, the Prescott family arrived.
Harrison stepped from the car first.
Then Victoria.
Then Beckett.
Finally, Margot.
The photographers began murmuring before the first flash went off.
Her midnight-blue gown had been altered around her pregnancy, the silk falling in clean, graceful lines over her belly. Her hair was swept back. Her grandmother’s pearls rested at her throat. She did not look abandoned. She did not look pitiful.
She looked protected.
She looked dangerous.
The room changed as she entered.
Conversation thinned. Heads turned. Champagne flutes paused halfway to mouths. People who had ignored Margot for years now watched her cross the ballroom with her family around her like a moving wall.
Preston saw her.
His smile faltered.
Only for a second.
But she saw it.
Sloane saw it too.
Margot felt no triumph. Not yet. Only a strange, clean distance, as if she were watching strangers act out the ending of a play she had already left.
Preston approached quickly.
“Margot,” he said warmly. “What a surprise. You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
His eyes flicked to Harrison, then to Beckett.
“Mr. Prescott. Victoria. Beckett. I didn’t realize you’d be joining us tonight.”
Harrison shook his hand.
Briefly.
“Preston,” he said. “We should speak soon about certain financial matters.”
Preston’s grip tightened.
“Of course. Always happy to discuss business with family.”
“Family,” Victoria repeated softly.
One word.
It landed like glass breaking.
Before Preston could answer, Douglas Ashford appeared behind him. His face was pale, his mouth set.
“Preston,” he said. “A word.”
Preston’s smile tightened. “Now?”
“Now.”
They moved toward the terrace.
Everyone pretended not to watch.
Everyone watched.
Through the glass doors, Margot saw Preston gesturing rapidly, defending, explaining, performing. Douglas stood still. Then he said something short. Preston stopped moving.
A man losing power always becomes smaller before he realizes it.
Inside the ballroom, Sloane stood alone with her red dress and stolen diamond.
Margot walked toward her.
The crowd seemed to sense the movement and quiet around them.
Sloane lifted her chin. “You made quite an entrance.”
“I didn’t make anything,” Margot said. “I arrived.”
Sloane’s mouth curved. “If this is about Preston, you should know he was never really yours.”
For one second, the words hurt.
Then they didn’t.
“No,” Margot said. “He wasn’t. That was his failure, not mine.”
Sloane’s expression flickered.
Margot looked at the ring.
“I designed that when I still believed love meant being chosen.”
Sloane’s fingers curled.
“Keep it,” Margot said. “It suits what you won.”
Then she turned away.
Preston returned from the terrace moments later, face drained of color. He found Margot near the champagne fountain.
“What did you do?” he hissed.
“I stopped hiding what you did.”
“You’re humiliating me.”
Margot almost laughed.
“There it is,” she said. “Not remorse. Not fear for your daughter. Not shame that you used my family, stole from them, lied to me for years. Just humiliation.”
He stepped closer.
“You think your family can save you from everything?”