Chapter 3

“She’s mine!”

When Ethan realized Adrian really meant to take me away, he abandoned the last of his restraint.

He pulled me into his arms, snarling like a dog guarding its food.

“I bought the clothes she’s wearing. I paid for her dance and acting lessons. We grew up together. You have no right to take her!”

Adrian’s eyes darkened.

Still keeping his composure, he gestured for the butler to escort my coworkers out.

Unfortunately, Sophie had never been good at reading a room.

She stood with her crutches and deliberately showed Adrian her injured leg.

“You must be mistaken, Mr. Hayes. Clara’s mother was a whore. The only reason she became a star was the pair of tits on her chest.”

“Clara’s just as cheap as her mother. How could she possibly be your daughter?”

On the surface, she was saying Adrian had made a mistake.

What she was really asking, in front of everyone, was whether he dared acknowledge the child of an actress notorious for playing innocent while juggling men.

Her words were so vile that the cameraman spoke up.

“Her mother is dead. Can’t you show a little respect? Do you really have to talk like that?”

Sophie didn’t have the insecurity I’d developed from a childhood of bullying.

She shoved her way between us and projected all the old photos of Mom from her phone onto the whiteboard.

“Respect the dead? Do you know my mother got her leg broken while looking for her? Or that my uncle is still in prison because she set him up? What gives you the right to tell me not to hate her?”

Photo after photo of Mom with different men appeared before us.

She’d known plenty of men, but only three had left photographic evidence.

Adrian Hayes, her bitter business rival.

They’d fought in public by day and tangled in bed by night. After Mom died, he’d gone on nearly a hundred arranged dates without marrying a single woman.

The second was Victor Pierce, the man she’d been supposed to marry in a family-arranged match.

They’d fallen in love at first sight. Mom had wrapped that old-fashioned man around her finger, made him break his own rules again and again, then found an excuse to take his money and leave.

He’d since married someone else, but he and his wife were strangers. He still wore the same cedar cologne.

The last man was Julian Brooks, a younger student from Mom’s college.

She’d spent a fortune creating their love nest. Once she got bored, she disappeared without a word.

“She was engaged to both you and Victor Pierce. Even if she’d gotten pregnant, there would’ve been no reason to leave the industry.”

Sophie smiled as she tapped her phone, convinced I was Julian’s shameful little secret.

Under the dim lights, the photos made people’s breathing turn heavy.

Someone muttered, “What a slut,” and the others laughed.

“Clara was really putting on a show earlier. Did she actually think Mr. Hayes would claim a bastard like her?”

“Look at her mother in those men’s arms. The mother couldn’t survive without a man. What do you expect from the daughter?”

“Clara hit Sophie over a broken vinyl record the other day. What, did it come with your mom’s homemade sex tapes?”

My hands slowly clenched. Suddenly, all the noise around me seemed to fade.

“Don’t listen.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard Mom sound vulnerable.

She’d never been afraid of anything. Now she was hurting because of me.

She could live with being called a shameless woman who broke every rule. She couldn’t bear to be a bad mother whose daughter suffered for it.

“Why are you still standing there?” Sophie laughed. “You homewrecker’s bastard. Take your clothes and get out.”

I picked up my clothes.

Then, facing the smile that had haunted countless nightmares, I slapped her as hard as I could.

The crack silenced the room.

Sophie screamed. “You hit me! You actually hit me in front of Ethan?!”

Adrian watched me return to his side with tears in my eyes. With a wave, he ordered the butler to shut Sophie up.

“Beautiful.”

His gaze greedily traced every tiny expression on my face, as though he were studying a masterpiece he’d never expected to see again.

His hand gently stroked the injured back of my head, leaving a warm, ticklish feeling.

“You’d only just turned five when Ethan brought you home, hadn’t you?”

“Has anyone ever told you? You really look like your mother.”