Chapter 9

The amusement on Damien's face hardened into something colder.

"Since we're listening," he drawled, "why don't we hear what Hazel has to say?"

The ballroom fell silent. Every eye swung to me.

Calmly, I raised my hand. A link flashed up on the screen behind me.

"Anyone who wants to scan it, please do. There's a surprise."

One phone lifted, then another...

And Sienna's and Adrian's voices came pouring through every speaker in the ballroom.

"...once her internship ends, I'll make sure her completion paperwork gets stuck, and she won't graduate..."

"So on that day, I'll have her framed for leaking confidential company files — in front of every old-money family in Ashford, at our engagement — she'll be finished..."

"Why don't you play along — be sweet to her — she'll fall for you, hard. And on the day of the engagement, won't that just be the show of the century..."

"...she can have Harrington blood, but the biological daughter is nothing. I crushed her under my heel..."

"Adrian... I'm pregnant... come home with me, tell my parents the one you really want to marry is me..."

"I've had my people swap the contract in Hazel's bag for classified files. I've got witnesses, evidence — if we push it hard enough, she could actually do jail time..."

"Adrian, I knew it. I knew even if I took you from her, Mom and Dad and Julian would pick my side. Once we drive her out, we can finally be together out in the open..."

The color drained from Adrian's and Sienna's faces as the recordings rolled.

Next, I put up a grainy security video: seven years earlier, Sienna and her friends cornering me in an alley, slapping me around. Surveillance cameras had been sparse back then. Damien had worked hard to pull this together for me.

And finally — the DNA report.

The result froze on the screen.

Charles Harrington and Sienna: confirmed father and daughter.

Which meant the "replacement" Charles had brought home was actually his illegitimate daughter — a love child he'd slipped into the family and let his wife and son raise as their own for years.

The ballroom exploded.

Slap.

My mother staggered to her feet and slapped my father full across the face.

Sienna grabbed for her in a panic and got shoved away.

"Get off me. You shameless little —"

The crowd couldn't stop talking.

"My God — Charles really pulled that? Made his own wife and son raise his bastard?"

"Even if they didn't know — that's his real daughter! How could they let her rot alone in Wickham for eight years?"

I walked up to the dais, slowly, and faced everyone.

"Today, I am ending my engagement to Adrian Sterling. Because while engaged to me, he carried on an affair behind my back — and tried to frame me to destroy my reputation."

"The so-called 'classified documents' have already been privately returned to the executive director of Sterling Group, Damien Sterling."

"And finally — from this moment on, I am cutting all ties with Charles Harrington, Evelyn Harrington, and Julian Harrington."

Alistair still handed over my grandfather's trust to me himself.

"As for Adrian — don't worry. When I get home, I'm stripping that little idiot's company off him. Just like his father. Useless."

"You're twenty-one today. This is what your grandfather wanted left to you. I'm delivering on his wishes. You and the Sterling boy weren't meant to be — but you can still think of me as your grandfather."

Not meant to be?

Out of the corner of my eye I caught Damien leaving the ballroom — casual as anything. I shot Alistair a sly little smile.

Well. We'd see about that.

After a quick goodbye to Alistair, I rushed out of the hotel, scanning for him. Finally — the familiar dark car at the curb.

Damien pulled up slowly, his smirk firmly in place as he looked at me waiting there like an idiot.

"Well done. Proud of you. That's what eating at my table gets you."

Then he handed me an internship completion certificate — bearing the Sterling Group corporate seal. "Here. Birthday present. Stamped by corporate. No subsidiary on earth is going to argue with that."

"Congratulations on graduating, Hazel."

I stared at his face for a long second, then slowly broke into a smile. As the car began to roll away, I found my courage and shouted after him:

"Damien — see you!"

He slammed on the brakes. That smirk died. His face — for once — looked flustered in the worst possible way.

"Excuse me? What did you just call me?"

I turned and ran for it.

Whatever — the engagement with Adrian was dead.

I didn't have to call him "uncle" anymore.