The Night He Chose Her, I Chose My Revenge Chapter 02

The Night He Chose Her, I Chose My Revenge Chapter 02

Julian and I met in the Ivy League. We dated for four years.

He had once been infatuated with my wild Texas energy, fascinated by me as if I were a rose growing in the desert. But only to a point. What he truly enjoyed was playing the elegant Southern gentleman, patiently sanding down all my “rough edges.” My directness was “rude.” My loud laugh was “unladylike.” And I, like a student desperate for a perfect grade, changed everything about myself for him.

When we graduated, Julian proposed. But he had one condition: I had to give up my life in Austin, move to Charleston, and “learn how to be a proper Croft hostess.”

I naively agreed.

Not long after the wedding, at a family gathering, Julian’s mother mocked my Texas accent in front of all the relatives, drawing a ripple of suppressed laughter. Mortified, I looked to Julian for help, but he just smiled, squeezed my hand, and said softly, “Darling, you have to get used to it. They don’t mean any harm.”

From that day on, I understood. I hadn’t married into a family.

I had married into a private club with impossibly high standards.

And I was the intruder who would never belong.

To teach me the “rules,” Julian created a five-year-long obedience test: the annual selection of the hostess for the Founders’ Gala.

My brother Liam, a Texan through and through, never trusted the cloying courtesy of Southern old money. He made a bet with me.

“Elara, I’ll give you five years. If Julian can’t bring himself to have you stand beside him as a true hostess in those five years, you come back to Austin with me. And when that happens, don’t blame me for solving this problem the ‘new money’ way.”

I loved Julian too much then. I thought it would be easy.

The first year, the hostess of the Founders’ Gala was a state senator’s daughter. Before the dinner, Julian told me she understood Charleston’s rules better than I did. That night, I was seated at the far end of the guest table, like some distant, irrelevant relative.

The second year, Julian’s childhood sweetheart took my place. My task was to “stay in the kitchen and make sure the menu goes off without a hitch.” Halfway through the evening, a thirsty guest wandered into the kitchen for water. Seeing me, he smiled apologetically. “Sorry, I thought you were the new housekeeper.”

The third year, the fourth year… eventually, I stopped asking who had replaced me.

I became the joke of Charleston society, the Mrs. Croft who would never be acknowledged.

Whenever people spoke of me, their voices dripped with pity and contempt.

Now it was the fifth year.

I stared at the message from my brother, and the single nerve I’d been holding on to finally snapped.

I lost.

I took a deep breath and typed one line onto the cold screen.

“Okay. Start the plan.”

The message sent. I turned off my phone, walked to the safe in the dressing room, and entered the passcode.

The door swung open. Inside, nestled in a velvet box, lay the magnolia brooch I had never been qualified to wear.

It was the symbol of the Croft family hostess, carved from diamonds and emeralds, as beautiful as it was cold.

I picked it up, the chill of the metal biting into my palm.

Then I turned and walked back downstairs.

Toward my husband.

And toward the woman who was about to wear it.