I Came Back And They All Chose Her Over Me Chapter 03

I Came Back And They All Chose Her Over Me Chapter 03

On the third day, I was at The Ridge Club, an Ashbourne-owned property, running through the welcome reception schedule.

The new lighting in the main ballroom had just been installed. Tier after tier of crystal chandeliers lit up, casting a soft glow over the champagne-colored backdrop..

I stood by the main table and looked around, making sure the floral arrangements would not block anyone’s view. Then I asked the planner to revise the French welcome card at the entrance one more time.

“Move the line that says [Welcome to the Beaumont Family] a little farther left,” I told her. “And don’t use script for the French sentence underneath. It looks too fussy.”

The planner quickly wrote it down.

Maren came over with a tablet in her arms.

“Ms. Ashbourne, Mr. Beaumont’s assistant just sent the final guest list. There will be nine people in his party. Also, we’ve already briefed the media contacts. No photos from this reception will be released publicly.”

“Good.”

“One more small issue.” Maren scrolled to the next page. “The hotel made a sample French welcome card first, but they misspelled one letter in Mr. Beaumont’s mother’s last name. I’ve already asked them to reprint it.”

I reached out for the sample card, but the edge of the paper was sharp. IIt nicked my fingertip, and a fine bead of blood appeared at once.

Maren gasped and turned to look for a Band-Aid.

I stared at that tiny drop of blood for two seconds and suddenly felt that everything these past few days had been like this. None of it looked serious from the outside, but the second I touched it, it stung.

“Oh, and one more thing.” Maren flipped to another page, fighting back a smile. “People in New York society have already started guessing whether the Ashbourne family is planning an engagement party for you.”

Without lifting my head, I said, “They’re not entirely wrong.”

Maren’s eyes widened at once.

Her reaction amused me enough that some of the tightness in my chest eased. “Don’t say anything yet.”

She nodded repeatedly and was just about to continue when footsteps sounded at the entrance of the ballroom.

I turned and saw Soren Vale.

He had come to the hotel for the tech forum upstairs. Two assistants followed behind him, and his suit jacket was draped over one arm. He looked as polished and composed as ever, but whatever warmth he once had for me now felt distant.

He stopped when he saw me too.

“Sera.” He let his assistants go upstairs first, then walked toward me. “What are you doing here?”

I almost laughed. Over the past two days, the question I had heard most often was exactly that.

What are you doing here?

As if every place I appeared automatically came with ulterior motives attached.

“Working,” I said simply.

Soren’s gaze moved across the ballroom before landing on the center of the backdrop. He had clearly seen Lucien’s name, but he did not ask about it right away.

“A family event?”

“Mm.”

“Important guests?”

I looked at him and suddenly felt a small, unkind impulse rise in me. “Yes. Very important guests.”

Something shifted faintly in Soren’s eyes.

Of the four of us, he had always been the best at hiding his emotions. When we were children, even if I deliberately hid one of his debate trophy, he would only find it, tap my forehead with a smile, and ask, “Are you done?”.

But this time, that brief pause did not escape me.

“Do you need help?” he asked.

“No.” I answered almost too quickly. “You should go handle your own work.”

Soren was quiet for a moment before he said, “About what happened at The Ninth House the other night…”

“What?” I looked up at him. “Are you here to review the case for someone?”

He looked at me and gave a soft sigh. “Sera, every word out of your mouth has a barb in it now.”

“You all decided I was the villain first. Am I supposed to cooperate and play the gracious saint?”

I curved my lips faintly. “Soren, after five years apart, your expectations of me are still surprisingly high.”

For once, he had no immediate answer.

Among the four of them, Soren had always been the best at smoothing things over when I lost my temper.

He could steady any situation and always seemed the fairest person in the room. But very often, the fairest person was also the one most skilled at pretending nothing had happened.

Like that night at The Ninth House.

He had not said a single harsh word to me, but he hadn’t said a single word for me either.

“That isn’t what I meant,” he finally said.

“Then what did you mean?”

I returned his own question to him, word for word.

Soren looked at me, and his gaze fell on the slim diamond ring on my left hand. His brows drew together slightly.

“Are you seeing someone?”

“Isn’t it a little late to ask that now?”

He said nothing.

Suddenly, I found the whole conversation painfully pointless.

If they had truly cared about me, there had been countless chances over the past five years to ask, “Sera, how have you been?”

Instead, they waited until I came back before showing this belated awareness of the ring on my finger.

I no longer felt like standing there talking to him, so I turned and went to check the dessert table.

Soren remained behind me for a few seconds before he finally left.

At noon, my mother and I had an appointment with a jewelry designer to look at the center stone for the wedding ring.

The designer laid out an entire tray of ring settings, but my mother did not look at the designs first. She looked at me instead.

“Do you want a statement piece, or something simpler?”

“Simple.” I flipped through two pages of the catalog. “Comfort matters most.”

My mother smiled. “Lucien said the same thing.”

My hand paused.

“He talked to you about it?”

“Quite a lot, actually.”

She lifted her tea and looked at me with a leisurely kind of amusement.

“He also sent me a very long message in English yesterday, asking whether you’ve been eating properly lately and whether you’ve been staying up too late because you’re busy after coming home.”

I could not help the small smile that tugged at my mouth.

The man who was almost coldly reserved in front of outsiders could apparently report things to my parents with that level of seriousness.

My mother gently set down her teacup. “Sera.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m very happy with the man you chose.”

I looked up at her.

“Not because of the Beaumont family’s status,” she said after a pause. “Because of the way he looks at you. It’s different from everyone else.”

A quiet warmth spread through my chest.

That afternoon, on the way back to the office, Blythe asked me out for coffee.

She was even busier than I was. The moment she sat down, she pushed her phone toward me.

“Look for yourself.”

It was the private forum used by New York’s old-money circle.

Someone had taken photos of me going in and out of The Ridge Club, trying on gowns, and looking at jewelry over the past few days. The caption was written with barely disguised malice.

[Miss Ashbourne has only been back three days, and the spectacle is already bigger than ever. Too bad times have changed. I wonder who she’s waiting to come back to her now.]

[Who else would she be waiting for? Standard first-love fantasy returns home routine.]

[Too bad the four heirs only have eyes for Elodie now.]

[Honestly, girls like Elodie are better. Quiet, gentle, easy to be around. Seraphina Ashbourne never looked like the type who could actually settle down.]

[No wonder their taste changed.]

I scrolled down a few pages and suddenly saw Dashiell’s name in one of the replies.

Someone had leaked that Dashiell had thrown several people out of The Ninth House the night before last for gossiping about Elodie.

The comments beneath that one were full of excitement.

[Dashiell kicked several people out of The Ninth House the night before last for gossiping about Elodie.]

[Isn’t Dashiell basically choosing sides in public?]

[Wasn’t Dashiell the one who spoiled Seraphina the most before?]

[That was before. Who still cares about the untouchable dream girl act now?]

I pushed the phone back to her, my voice still calm. “It’s fine.”

“What about this is fine?”

“At least now all of New York society knows where they stand. They like Elodie, not me.”

I lifted my coffee and took a slow sip. “If anyone misunderstands my relationship with them again, it’ll save me the trouble of explaining.”

Blythe froze for a moment.

“Sera,” she said softly, “you’re not really okay with this, are you?”

I set down my cup and looked out at the people passing beyond the window.

“Of course it hurts.” I said.

The cup touched the saucer with a small, crisp sound.

I stared at the faint brown mark on the rim for a couple of seconds before lifting my eyes again.

“I just never thought there would come a day when I’d sit across from them and have to prove I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

For a while, Blythe said nothing.

She was one of the few people who knew the whole story.

She knew that not long after I first went abroad five years ago, I met Lucien at an alumni reception.

She knew we had walked three blocks together through heavy snow.

She knew he had learned English for me until he could write long messages to my parents.

She knew that the year I graduated, I had already accepted his proposal.

So she only reached over and patted the back of my hand, asking nothing more.

That evening, I had just returned to the office when Maren rushed in with her laptop in her arms.

“Ms. Ashbourne, there’s been a change”

“What is it?”

“Mr. Beaumont changed his flight to New York.”

My heart jumped, and I took the laptop from her.

In the email was the updated itinerary his assistant had just sent over.

He was originally scheduled to arrive on the fifth of next month. Now he had changed it to two nights from now.

I stared at the date for a long time without speaking.

Maren held back a smile. “Should I upgrade the hotel security first?”

I was just about to answer when my phone rang.

It was Lucien.

I picked up before I had time to ask anything, and his calm English came through the line.

“Sera.”

“Mm.”

“I miss you.”

He said it even more smoothly than last time.

A smile rose before I could stop it. “So?”

“So I don’t want to wait until next month.”

Outside the office windows, the evening sky darkened little by little.

Holding the phone, I let out a quiet breath. It turned out that being firmly chosen by someone could quiet everything inside you at once.

On the other end, Lucien asked in a low voice, “Are you happy that I’m coming early?”

I looked at my reflection in the glass and smiled.

“Very happy.”