Damon froze like he’d been struck by lightning.
Sabine gasped, dropping her champagne glass onto the polished marble. It shattered, gold liquid spreading across the floor.
“D-Dad?” Damon choked out, voice squeaking. “Mr. Drummond… she’s… she’s your—”
“This is Aurelia Drummond,” my father announced, his voice carrying clearly to every corner of the silent ballroom. “My only daughter. The sole heir to Drummond Global.”
A collective murmur exploded across the room. Several board members standing near Damon quietly took three steps back, putting as much distance between themselves and him as physically possible.
“No…” Sabine whispered, shaking her head in terror. “No, that’s impossible… she’s just a housewife… she wears old clothes… she doesn’t have a dime…”
“She wore old clothes because she believed in humility,” Winston said, turning a cold, merciless glare on Sabine. “She stayed in a small house because she believed your words were genuine. And you treated my daughter like a maid.”
Damon looked at me, eyes wild with panic, hands shaking violently at his sides.
“Aurelia… baby,” Damon pleaded, taking a desperate step forward. “Why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t know! If I had known you were a Drummond —”
“If you had known,” I interrupted, looking him dead in the eye, “you would have pretended to love me a little longer. You would have used my name to build your company, just like you used my patience to fuel your ego.”
“Aurelia, please!” Damon grabbed for my arm, but Percy stepped between us, placing a solid hand on Damon’s chest and shoving him back. “I was confused! Sabine means nothing to me! It was a mistake! We’re married!”
“Not anymore,” my father’s chief legal counsel said, stepping forward with a thick black folder. He pulled out a set of legal documents and handed them to Damon. “Mr. Reeve, you’re being served with emergency divorce proceedings on grounds of marital fraud and emotional distress. Additionally, Drummond Global has initiated a full audit of Reeve Logistics.”
Damon stared at the papers. “An… an audit?”
“Reeve Logistics operates on three sub-contracts granted by Drummond Global subsidiaries,” my father stated coldly. “As of four minutes ago, those contracts have been terminated. Your credit lines are frozen, your corporate accounts are seized pending investigation, and the mortgage on your Sewickley Heights house has been called for immediate full payment.”
Damon’s phone began ringing frantically in his jacket pocket. Then Sabine’s phone rang. Then his assistant’s phone.
He didn’t answer. He knew what the calls were.
Reeve Logistics was dead.
Part 5: Welcome Home
The grand ballroom went completely silent as Damon fell to his knees on the marble floor, the divorce papers scattered around him.
Sabine backed away, face twisted in disgust and fear. She slipped the diamond ring off her finger, tossed it onto the floor beside him, and tried to slip into the crowd, but two hotel security guards intercepted her at the exit and escorted her off the premises.
Damon looked up at me from the floor, weeping openly, hands clutching the hem of my dress.
“Aurelia… please… give me one more chance… I’ll change, I swear to God I’ll change! Don’t ruin me!”
I looked down at the man I’d spent three years trying to please. The man who had made me feel small, invisible, and worthless.
I felt no anger. I felt no urge to yell or scream.
I only felt free.
“I didn’t ruin you, Damon,” I said quietly, pulling my silk dress back from his grip. “You ruined yourself the moment you decided a person’s worth depends on what they wear.”
I turned my back on him.
My father offered me his arm. I took it, resting my hand comfortably over his sleeve.
Together we walked toward the center of the ballroom, where the chairman of Meridian Group waited with a fresh glass of champagne.
“Welcome home, daughter,” my father whispered as the orchestra resumed a slow, beautiful waltz.
