Chapter 14 - The Mother's Malice
|
My mother shrank back in her chair, the heavy diamonds around her neck suddenly looking like a shiny collar choking her.
“He’s lying!” she shrieked, though her voice lacked any real conviction. “He’s a clumsy idiot trying to save his own skin! Why would I ruin my own daughter's wedding reception?”
“Because of the dress,” Adrian stated flatly.
My mother froze.
Adrian pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket—a copy of the hotel’s security footage logs.
“My security team pulled the hallway cameras ten minutes ago. We have you on high-definition video handing this boy a thick envelope of cash,” Adrian said. “As for the motive? My wife walked into this ballroom wearing a custom gown crafted by a private Parisian atelier. It is a masterpiece. Claire is wearing a mass-produced, off-the-rack dress she bought from a boutique in New York.”
Adrian looked at my mother with absolute disgust.
“You couldn't stand the fact that the daughter you spent thirty years beating down walked into a room looking like royalty, while your golden child looked common. So you paid a boy to ruin her dress.”
The whispers in the room turned venomous. High society could forgive a lot of things, but public, tacky jealousy from a mother toward her own child was social suicide.
My mother covered her face with her hands, sobbing as the wealthy women she had spent decades trying to impress muttered insults at her.
“Pathetic,” a prominent senator's wife loudly whispered from Table 2.
May you like
My mother had called me a pathetic spinster. Now, she was wearing the title herself.
“But that,” Adrian said, turning his lethal gaze back to my father, “is merely a domestic squabble. Let's talk about federal crimes.”
