Five Years a Secret, Now I Deny We Ever Met Chapter 07

Five Years a Secret, Now I Deny We Ever Met Chapter 07

Sebastian instinctively tried to shove Isabella off and lunge toward me.

But Isabella clutched his arm, her nails digging into the expensive fabric of his suit. Her perfectly made-up face was a mask of broken pleading, tears welling in her eyes. In a trembling voice only the two of them could hear, she said, “Seb… I’m begging you. For my father’s reputation, for the agreement between our families, just finish the ceremony. If you call this off now, my family is finished.”

I knew the rules of their world all too well.

Isabella couldn’t bear to imagine the joke she and her family would become in East Coast high society if Sebastian admitted our relationship now. Even less could she imagine how the scandal over the misappropriated funds would devour them without the protection of Sebastian’s family.

Sebastian’s jaw was tight, his chest rising and falling, but he didn’t move. Like a trapped beast, he could only lock his bloodshot eyes on me.

I kept my flawless smile in place and gave the dumbstruck guests an apologetic little shrug, as though I were merely concluding a bit of harmless entertainment. Then I turned and led the still-stunned Julian toward the glass doors of the terrace.

“We could use some fresh air, don’t you think?” I said to him.

Only when the cool night wind hit his face did Julian seem to snap out of it. He shut the door behind us, cutting off the music that was already trying to paper over the cracks in the party’s facade. Leaning against the cold marble railing, he looked at me with a mixture of scrutiny, confusion, and the anger of a man who’s been used.

“He played you for a fool. Why didn’t you expose that hypocrite in there?”

I leaned against the opposite wall and looked at him calmly, letting the night breeze lift my hair. “Mr. Julian, if I had stood in front of all those trustees and professors and accused Sebastian of being a liar and my best friend of betraying me, who do you think would have ended up labeled the ‘crazy woman’?”

I gently swirled the champagne in my glass, watching the bubbles rise and burst.

“They wouldn’t remember the truth. They would only remember a scholarship girl who, after failing to marry into a wealthy family, caused a scene at an engagement party and tried to ruin her ex-boyfriend and her ex-best friend. My academic career, my reputation, everything I worked so hard for, would have vanished in that moment.”

“So,” I raised my eyes and looked straight at him, “I chose to respond with a brilliant academic achievement they can’t argue with. That is my counterattack.”