The Real Heiress Strikes Back

2: 2

2

The whole room went silent.

My mother was the first to recover.

"Ivy, what nonsense are you spouting?"

"Clive is Joyce's personal therapist. For three years he's been the one managing her condition. No one understands her health better than he does."

"No one else can steady her the way he can, so of course his treatment works best."

Her fingers dug hard into my arm.

"With all these guests here today, you want to ruin Joyce's reputation? What exactly are you after?"

Before I could get a word in, my brother exploded.

He'd been quietly in love with Joyce for years, and the last thing he could stand was hearing her tied to another man.

To him, what I'd just said had defiled the goddess in his heart.

Jealousy and fury churned in Luke's eyes.

"Joyce is sweet and kind and asks nothing of anyone. Why do you have to attack her at every turn?"

"You're this vicious, no wonder you got kidnapped for eighteen years. You must have done nothing good in a past life to deserve it."

Deserve it.

So in my own brother's eyes, being taken because I saved him, suffering for eighteen years, meant nothing. No guilt at all. He thought I'd brought it on myself.

*Luke's obsession with Joyce has driven him insane. He's erased the person who saved his life. Disgusting!*

*Run, girl! This whole family are ghouls.*

My chest closed up. I couldn't bear another second there.

Joyce covered her face, her shoulders trembling, her voice choked.

"Ivy, I'm begging you, please stop."

"From the day you came back, I've been stepping aside on my own."

"Everything in the Henson family, Mom and Dad's love, I wanted to give it all back to you. I never once thought of fighting you for anything."

Her eyes swam with tears, fragile enough to shatter at a touch.

"The only reason I stayed on in the Henson house with no shame, forced myself to keep living, was that I couldn't bear to hurt Mom, Dad, and Luke."

"There has never been anything between Clive and me. Not one improper thing, ever."

"Ivy, what did I ever do to you? Why would you slander me like this?"

In a few sentences, Joyce cast herself as the poor, dutiful girl who swallowed her pride and endured everything.

And I became the aggressive, small-minded villain.

My father, who had always doted on his daughter, kicked over the life-size wedding cutout of me.

"Ivy, if I'd known you'd come back and bully Joyce at every turn, leaving her no peace day after day, I never would have spent the money to find you. I should have left you to rot in that dirt-poor mountain village!"

The room erupted.

Guests murmured among themselves, their eyes on me full of strangeness and scorn.

Clive held Joyce against him, his brow tight, his voice cold.

"Ivy, apologize to Joyce right now."

"Apologize to her publicly for your filthy accusations, in front of everyone!"

My heart was dead water. "I wasn't wrong. Why should I apologize?"

Clive's eyes turned colder still.

"If you won't apologize, then I'll have to reconsider this wedding."

"The Delgado family will never marry a young wife who is this vicious, who slanders others as she pleases."

Luke leaned close to my ear.

"Ivy, don't be so shameless when you're given a chance."

"Think hard about that senile grandmother of yours in the care home."

"Refuse to apologize today, and I'll call the care home this instant and have her thrown out on the street!"

I froze where I stood.

Eighteen years adrift, kidnapped into a poor mountain village, worn down by every kind of cruelty.

It was that blind, kindhearted old woman who took me in.

She scrimped and starved herself, gave everything to keep me safe, stayed with me through the darkest years of my life.

Now Granny had dementia, and the Henson family had placed her in a care home.

I could endure everyone's favoritism and betrayal. The one thing I couldn't do was let it fall on Granny.

I clenched my fists until they hurt, and the pride and stubbornness in my heart were crushed, inch by inch.

"I'm sorry. I misunderstood all of you."