The processor was knocked clean off Claire’s ear, and the world dropped into silence.
All that remained was the burning sting spreading across her cheek.
Memory surged up, uninvited, being bullied back in middle school.
Her processor, stolen, knocked to the ground, and her scrambling desperately to find it in the dirt.
She’d lost count of the slaps and punches that day.
Ethan had descended like something out of a myth, throwing himself at the boy who’d hit her, fists flying without hesitation.
But all she remembered thinking, even through the pain, was: This is so embarrassing.
My face must look awful.
I hope he doesn’t see.
Tears and snot streaming everywhere, and only once she’d caught her breath did she realize she’d never picked the processor back up.
Just as she turned to search for it, someone pressed it into her hand from behind.
She’d put it on just in time to hear Ethan’s voice, young and light and careless behind her
“Claire, aren’t you going to turn around and look at me?
I broke my nose for you.”
She’d turned, instinct pulling her toward him.
Under a setting sun, a triumphant boy held out some unnamed wildflower, grinning like he’d just crowned her the most beautiful girl alive.
Claire, Claire, won’t you look at me?
Who was calling her name?
Was that young Ethan?
She turned to look for him now and found the real Ethan gently scooping Rosalind up off the floor, walking out of the restaurant without a single glance back.
Every slap, every punch from that entire childhood, seemed to land on her all at once, collapsing years into a single moment.
It felt like every bone in her body had cracked at the same time.
It wasn’t until Naomi’s shaking hands fumbled the processor back into place that Claire heard her voice, choked with tears.
“Claire, Claire, does it hurt?
Should I take you to get your face looked at?”
Claire blinked, wiped her chin, shook her head.
“It’s fine.
No hospital needed.
Your clothes are soaked, though let’s just get home.”
Claire turned down Naomi’s ride and caught a cab back to Begonia Court instead.
She rode the elevator up in a daze, and the doors opened directly onto Weston.
She looked down on instinct and tried to slip past him but he caught her arm.
Who hit you.
She’d braced herself for the usual questions: what happened, why’s your face like that, why are you crying the kind she could deflect with a flat, it’s nothing.
But Weston had always cut straight through evasion, even as a kid.
She just said, “Ethan.”
He didn’t react to that.
Only: “Come inside.
Let’s treat that.”
Before she could answer, his grip tightened, pulling her straight into Room 2201.
It wasn’t until she was standing in his bathroom, staring down at a tube of ointment in her hand, that a strange thought cut through the noise in her head.
Where does Weston keep pulling this ointment from, exactly, every time my face ends up bruised?
Growing up, Ethan had always been the one to stand up for her but as a result, she’d rarely actually gotten hurt, let alone anything as bad as a broken nose.
She’d figured out much later that Ethan, raised in wealth from birth, had never really needed to lift a hand himself.
A single look from him was usually enough to scare off anyone using his name for their own gain.
Which meant he’d had almost no practical experience treating a wound.
The one ointment that actually worked, back when she was a kid, had come from Weston.
On her walk home once, he’d appeared out of nowhere and pressed a tube into her hand.
Three times a day.
Same as now barely a word spoken, item handed over, then gone.
Claire studied her reflection and carefully worked the ointment into her swollen cheek.
Old memories kept surfacing, and something quiet inside her some small, stubborn hope she hadn’t even fully admitted to flickered out like a candle doused in water.
What was left behind felt like empty ground.
She’d just finished when her phone rang.
“Excuse me, is this Claire Whitman?”
“Speaking.
Who’s calling?”
“Havenbridge Police Department.
We have a, Naomi Reyes in custody on an assault charge.
You’re listed as her emergency contact.
Could you come down here?”
Claire bolted out of the bathroom.
Weston was still on the balcony, mid-call.
She didn’t stop to explain, just grabbed a cab and left.
The car pulled up to the police station.
Claire jumped out before it fully stopped and Ethan pulled her aside before she could get through the door.
“Let go of me!”
She kicked him, hard, without hesitation.
He grunted, glaring at her.
“I thought keeping you home the past two days would teach you something.
Instead you got worse.
It’s one thing to hit Rosalind in a restaurant but sending your best friend to put her in the hospital?”
“Rosalind’s already fragile after everything that’s happened, and Naomi actually put her hands on her; she’s unconscious right now.
Happy?
Claire, when did you turn into this?”
Claire barely registered what Naomi had actually done, gone after Rosalind, apparently, on her behalf.
Pain and panic collided, and the words came out reckless.
“Me, vicious?
I’ve watched my husband carry on an affair with his own brother’s widow under my roof, and I’m not allowed to be angry?
Do I need to shred their sheets to qualify as ‘virtuous’?”
“Claire!
Do you hear yourself?!”
He grabbed her by the throat and shoved her against the wall.
The dim light under the station’s awning caught her bruised cheek, her red-rimmed eyes.
His breath caught.
I did that.
I actually hit her.
Seeing Rosalind hurt had made him furious enough to do this?
Claire recovered from the pain and looked up, eyes burning with something close to hatred.
“Ethan.
You disgust me.”
Something sharp and unfamiliar tore through his chest.
His hand trembled.
For a second he lost the thread entirely, what he’d even come here to say.
Right.
Making her pay for going after Rosalind.
“Claire Rosalind and I have done nothing wrong.
You’ve hurt her badly enough already.
Naomi’s the one who’s going to answer for it.”
“What does that mean?
What are you going to do to her?”
His hand released.
His anger had cooled into something colder, more calculated.
“Naomi stays locked up for three months.
When she gets out, no company in Havenbridge will touch her unless she goes to Rosalind’s hospital room right now and kneels to apologize.”
Claire’s voice broke loose, desperate.
“I saved the restaurant’s footage.”
“What?”
She stared him down.
“I have the funeral footage too.
And the house.”
“There’s nothing between you and Rosalind, technically.
But if the press gets hold of any of it, exaggerated or not, good luck convincing anyone you two aren’t sleeping together.”
“Let Naomi go, or every clip goes straight to the tabloids.
I’ll go public, tell the country my husband cheated on me.
You’re not afraid of a scandal?
Neither am I.”
Furious, Ethan slammed her back against the wall.
“You’re threatening me?
Claire, you’ve gotten comfortable being Mrs.
Ashford.
Have you forgotten what you were before this marriage, a powerless student with nothing?”
“You think public opinion scares me?
The Ashfords own half the press in this city.
Good luck finding an outlet that’ll even run your story.”
Claire’s fists clenched.
“There has to be at least one you don’t own.
If not, I’ll keep looking until I find it.”
“You’re the one who called me powerless, Ethan.
Someone with nothing left to lose isn’t afraid of someone who has everything to protect.
Go ahead make sure I never speak again.
Otherwise, I’m holding onto every second of footage I have.”
“You”
Ethan’s grip tightened around her throat again.
A cold voice cut through the air nearby.
“Ethan.
Look at you now.”
His hand froze mid-motion.
He turned to find Weston striding toward them in a black trench coat, Marcus trailing a step behind like a silent, imposing shadow.
Ethan’s eyes followed Weston’s gaze into the distance where Graham stood having what looked like a very “friendly” conversation with a paparazzo who’d just emerged from the bushes, camera still rolling.
Ethan released Claire on instinct.
“Uncle.
I’m handling a family matter.”