Chapter 1 - Kneel and Apologize
Garrett Hale’s shoe slammed into Miriam Vale’s side.
The fifty-eight-year-old woman hit the marble floor hard enough to send a champagne glass rolling beneath the silver banquet console.
The ballroom went silent.
Alessia Moretti did not scream.
That frightened Garrett more.
She rushed to her mother, dropped to one knee, and touched Miriam’s trembling shoulder.
“Mom?”
“I’m okay,” Miriam whispered, though her face said otherwise.
Alessia rose.
Slowly.
Her black evening dress brushed the marble as she crossed the space between them.
Garrett straightened his tuxedo.
He still looked amused.
Alessia stopped inches from him.
“Kneel,” she said. “Apologize to me.”
Garrett laughed directly in her face.
“You’ve completely lost your mind.”
Alessia punched him.
One clean blow.
Garrett staggered backward and crashed against the decorative fountain.
Water exploded over his tuxedo as candles scattered across the marble.
He dragged himself upright.
“Just try touching my mother again.”
Alessia’s eyes narrowed.
“Your mother?”
Garrett charged.
Alessia pivoted and drove him backward into the silver banquet console.
Serving domes and flower vases crashed around him.
Garrett collapsed among the wreckage.
Only then did Alessia look at Evelyn Hale.
Her mother-in-law had watched everything.
She stepped back.
Uneasy.
But not shocked.
That was what Alessia noticed.
Not shock.
Recognition.
Like Evelyn had expected this confrontation.
Alessia removed her wedding ring.
Garrett looked up just as she threw it against his soaked chest.
“You kicked my mother.”
“Alessia—”
“Now get out of my house.”
His expression changed.
Not to fear.
To contempt.
Garrett slowly pushed himself onto one elbow.
“Your house?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
For half a second.
That was all Alessia needed.
She turned toward her.
“What did he mean?”
Evelyn answered too quickly.
“Nothing.”
Miriam suddenly grabbed Alessia’s hand.
Her fingers were ice cold.
“Don’t let them upstairs.”
Alessia looked down.
“What?”
“Your father’s study.”
Garrett froze.
Alessia saw it.
So did Miriam.
Miriam swallowed painfully.
“That’s why he kicked me.”
Garrett struggled to stand.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Miriam looked directly at her daughter.
“I found what they were looking for.”
The ballroom seemed to shrink around Alessia.
“What did you find?”
Miriam reached into the pocket of her gray dress.
It was empty.
Her face drained of color.
“The envelope.”
Alessia stared at her.
“What envelope?”
Miriam whispered:
May you like
“The one your father told me never to let Garrett see.”
Across the ballroom, Evelyn Hale quietly moved one hand toward her purse.
