Eleanor, realizing the sheer, undeniable reality of the public exposure, stepped rapidly between her sons, violently shoving them apart with surprising strength. She smoothed her ruined dress, adjusting her posture to desperately regain her crumbling, aristocratic facade. She turned her icy, hateful glare back to me.
“Fine,” Eleanor spat, her voice ringing with pure, unadulterated venom. “Keep your little trap. Keep your pathetic safe and your precious little accounts. We don’t need your pennies, Harper. The Hale family estate is worth tens of millions of dollars. Carter’s development company clears more in a single financial quarter than you will see in an entire lifetime. We are leaving this circus. And you are getting nothing but a divorce paper and a defamation lawsuit in the morning.”
She turned gracefully on her heel, gesturing sharply for her disgraced family to follow her out the doors, immensely confident that she held the ultimate, unbreakable upper hand—her vast generational wealth.
“Eleanor,” I called out, my voice slicing through the air and stopping her dead in her tracks. “Before you march out of here to your estate… you might want to open the wedding safe first.”
Eleanor stopped. Her shoulders stiffened. She slowly turned back around, a deeply suspicious sneer twisting her perfectly injected lips. “Excuse me? What did you just say to me?”
I walked slowly over to the shattered champagne glass, stepping carefully over the crystal shards in my white designer heels, and approached the heavy steel wedding-gift safe. My torn dress trailed behind me over the marble like a casualty of war. I didn’t need the broken platinum necklace Carter had so violently ripped from my throat; I simply leaned down and pressed my right thumb firmly to the biometric scanner on the keypad.
A small green light flashed. The heavy steel door clicked heavily and swung open smoothly.
Inside the cavernous metal box, there were no towering stacks of cash. There were no envelopes stuffed with checks from wealthy relatives. The safe was entirely empty, save for a single, thick, blood-red envelope resting in the very center. It was a traditional Asian wedding envelope, normally used to signify luck, prosperity, and new beginnings.
I reached in, pulled it out, and held it out toward her. “I believe this piece of paper belongs to you. Consider it my ultimate bridal offering to the Hale family dynasty.”
Eleanor hesitated. Her immense arrogance warred visibly with a gnawing, terrible curiosity in her eyes. Finally, she stepped forward and snatched the red envelope from my hand, tearing the thick, high-quality paper open with sharp, impatient movements. She reached inside and pulled out the thick fold of legal documents.
It wasn’t a check. It wasn’t an apology.
Eleanor’s eyes scanned the heavy black text on the first page. The mocking sneer on her face slowly dissolved, replaced by a look of profound, sickening confusion. She blinked rapidly, her eyes darting frantically as she moved to the second page. Her hands began to shake so violently that the thick parchment rattled audibly in the quiet room.
“What… what in God’s name is this?” she stammered, all the venom and confidence completely drained from her throat, leaving only a hollow rasp.
“Read the bold print at the very top of the page, Eleanor,” I suggested softly, folding my arms across my chest. “Read it out loud for the guests.”