BEATRICE'S POV
"You look exhausted."
Lia leans against the couch, watching me crack open my third beer. My hair is wet and loose, t-shirt clinging to damp skin.
I take a long pull. "Just work."
She rolls her eyes. "That trash bag really overworks you."
Lia and Adrien have never gotten along. After the night at my old apartment, they've crossed paths dozens of times inside Laurent Corporation. Each encounter ends the same way — Adrien calling her an impatient, arrogant woman, and Lia calling him a trash bag of rotten potatoes.
A small laugh escapes me. "You two seem oddly passionate about hating each other."
She smacks her lips. "I'm passionate about beating him again. It would be oddly therapeutic."
"He's over a foot taller than you, Lia."
She mimics my voice in a high-pitched whine. "Yeah, yeah."
The doorbell rings. I frown. "Who's coming at this hour?"
Lia checks the security camera on her phone. "It's Sophia. Let me get her."
Sophia. The woman who claims to hate me but runs to my apartment first whenever her life implodes. I'm expecting another tantrum — the kind Lia listens to with genuine interest and then enthusiastically escalates.
But Sophia doesn't stroll in ranting as usual. She runs, mismatched socks.
Hair wild. A green trouser and an oversized red t-shirt that looks like she grabbed it off the floor. Sophia Jonathan has never let another human being see her this disheveled.
"What happened?" I frown.
She clutches her chest, gasping for breath. "Theodore. He's getting married to Isabelle Bernard. The engagement was just announced on the European high society's private forum."
My hand stills around the beer can.
And something I thought was already broken breaks further. Into smaller pieces. Into dust.
Lia looks at Sophia. "You're sure?"
She nods. Pulls out her phone. Holds it toward me.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
A photograph fills the screen. Theodore standing beside a woman — his hand resting on her waist, protective, possessive, natural. Those same violet eyes. Calm. Steady. Staring through the camera with the quiet softness I once thought was reserved for me.
Beside him: shining blonde hair. Blue eyes. A soft smile that radiates breeding, femininity, belonging. Everything about her screams the kind of woman who was born into his world rather than stumbling into it by accident.
On her ring finger — a green emerald. Catching the light.
Emerald.
The same gemstone as the earrings he gave me. The heirloom that nearly cost me my earlobe. The ones I've kept in a velvet box in my bedside drawer like a stupid woman holding onto the last shred of evidence that maybe — maybe — those eight days meant something.
Sophia watches me. Trying to mask her concern behind composure. "Beatrice..."
"They look good together. I'm fine."
Lia's eyes snap to me in shock. She knows I'm not fine. Not even in the same hemisphere as fine. The hollowness in my chest feels bottomless — a pit that keeps deepening no matter how much I throw into it.
The ghost of his warmth against my body. His lips on mine and on my forehead. That smile — the dimple, the shy flush, the expression that felt too precious to share with the world.
They were never mine.
Even when he said they were.
"Betty." Lia's hand finds my shoulder. I look at her. Too calm. The dangerous kind of calm that comes right before collapse.
"He's just a fucking jerk. Don't —"
My lips tremble. I swore I wouldn't cry over him again. I swore it in the bar six months ago. I swore it every morning I woke up and didn't reach for my phone.
But this pain. This specific ache — seeing him with someone else, seeing the emerald on her finger, seeing his hand on her waist the way it used to rest on my back — it's too much.
"I trusted him." My voice cracks.
Sophia's face goes pale. She has never seen this version of me. Neither has Lia — not fully, not like this. I have never let myself break in front of anyone except him.
And look where that got me.
"I couldn't stop myself from falling for him." Tears fall. One by one. I look at the photograph through blurring vision.
"I chose him that day. When Adrien said he was there to save me from Theodore — I told him I didn't need saving. I chose Theodore. I chose him in front of Adrien and Angel and Lucas and everyone, and he —"
I choke. The beer and the emotions that have been compressed inside my chest for six months are erupting simultaneously.
Lia and Sophia wrap their arms around me. I don't lift my hands to hug them back. I can't. My body doesn't have the strength for reciprocity right now.
"I was wrong. I was so wrong. Why can't I just have someone to love? Why did he come into my life, make me feel safe, be so gentle with me, make me believe his promises —"
My body shudders between them. My breathing shortens.
"Why did he say he'd stay? He talked about marriage, children — like it was real. Like he was certain." My words come out childlike. Small. The voice of a girl who wanted to believe in something beautiful and got punished for it. "He described mornings and coffee and a daughter with my stubbornness. He said they were just a bonus. He said —"
"Baby chick, please..." Lia's breathing is rapid against my neck. I can feel her tears wetting my skin.
It doesn't stop. The words keep coming like bleeding I can't tourniquet.
"Like a fool, I thought he was the answer to every late-night prayer I've made since childhood. A place where I could finally stop being strong." I sniffle. "But why is this happening to me? What did I do?"
"You didn't do anything." Sophia whispers.
I shake my head. Smile through the tears. "I'm just not meant to be loved." A laugh escapes — wet, broken, the ugliest sound I've ever made. "Stupid Beatrice. Always expecting. Even when you know love isn't for you."
My legs give out. All three of us sink to the floor. Lia and Sophia cradle me between them and I wail — six months of waiting, hoping, and slowly dying compressed into sounds that don't belong to the woman who walks into boardrooms and closes billion-dollar deals.
"Why did I fall for him? I was never supposed to want him. Never supposed to love —"
Lia pulls back. Cups my face. Her cheeks are wet. Eyes swollen. She whispers with a gentle smile stitched in pain:
"It's not your fault. You just loved." She wipes my tears with her thumbs. "We're human, baby chick. We all deserve to be loved. It's the most human thing — wanting someone to see us. But sometimes..." her voice catches, "sometimes people choose the easier path."
Sophia waits until my breathing steadies. Then, slowly, carefully, she fills the silence with context.
"Once Theodore and Isabelle marry and produce an heir, his position as patriarch becomes unshakeable. Fifteen years ago, Theodore's bloodbath killed his entire immediate family. After that, four more years of internal conflict within the Schweitzer clan — more deaths, more power struggles — before he consolidated control. But recently, faction leaders within the clan have been raising questions. Theodore needs a legitimate heir to ensure stability."
I sit on the floor. Listening. My heart feels numb.
"So I was his entertainment before he chose an heiress."
"Betty —"
"Continue."
Sophia is the best-informed person in our circle when it comes to high society. Parties, galas, private forums — she attends them all and retains everything.
"The Schweitzer clan spans 357 members including extended family. Marrying Isabelle Bernard — sole daughter of the Bernard Holdings CEO — gives Theodore powerful in-laws and continental legitimacy. Isabelle is regarded as the white rose of European high society. The match secures everything Theodore needs: money, political alliance, and an heir."
Money. Power. Legacy.
Everything I can't offer.
"Then why did he approach me in the first place?" I whisper.
Sophia looks at me with genuine uncertainty. "That's the part I can't answer. Nobody truly knows Theodore Schweitzer. The rumor is that the devil himself would be more merciful."
Late that night, I stand on the balcony.
Lia and Sophia have fallen asleep on my couch — tangled together, mascara-streaked, still in their mismatched crisis outfits. New York glitters below me at 2 AM. The city that never sleeps, indifferent to the woman standing above it who hasn't slept properly in six months.
A cigarette burns between my lips. Ashy. Addictive. The only vice I've allowed myself that doesn't come with a heartbeat and a set of promises.
Should I ignore how much I hurt? Should I forgive and forget? Should I quietly hand him his happy ending — the heiress, the heir, the dynasty secured for another three centuries?
The prince always belongs to the princess. The ballroom and the castle were built for them. I was never part of that architecture. I was a visitor who stayed too long and mistook hospitality for home.
I am not Cinderella.
Cinderella waits for Prince Charming to rescue her. Cinderella sits in ashes and hopes.
I'm done waiting. I'm done hoping. I'm done being the woman who trusts and gets hollowed out for it.
A cold sensation spreads down my spine. My eyes harden. Something ancient and sharp replaces the softness that Theodore spent eight days building and six months destroying.
Three hundred years. The Schweitzer dynasty. Must be powerful.
But the older the foundation, the deeper the cracks.
Theodore Schweitzer — you should never have played with me. Because when a woman decides on destruction, there is nothing ahead but fire.
"What did you say?"
Ludwig Dominik Laurent stares at me from behind his desk. Morning light filters through stained-glass windows, casting colored shadows across the study floor. His jaw is clenched tight. His icy blue eyes carry the particular intensity of a man who has heard something that changes his understanding of the past six months.
"It was Theodore Schweitzer who stabbed Ms. Rosie that night."
Ludwig rises. Towers over me. Anger radiates from his body like heat from an engine. "Girl — are you certain?"
"Yes, Chairman."
"How do you know?"
"I saw CCTV footage when Aurélien was reviewing it with Kang. The build, the movement pattern, the shoes — the man in that footage and Theodore Schweitzer are the same person."
His hand closes around my throat. Tight. Painful. The grip of a man who has killed with these hands and is deciding whether to add another name to the list.
I keep my eyes steady. Don't flinch. Don't fight.
"You..." he hisses.
"I'm fulfilling my duty."
His grip tightens. "You're Adrien's advisor. Why are you bringing this to me instead of him?"
Here. The edge. The question that determines whether I walk out of this room as an employee or something else entirely.
"Because you're more powerful than him." I let my voice drop — deliberate, measured, precise. "And Ms. Rosie is your daughter. Your little princess. You've been hunting for the culprit for six months. I thought providing the answer might be worth something."
Ludwig releases my throat. Steps back. Walks to the window. His reflection in the stained glass looks like a painting of a king deciding the fate of a kingdom.
I had known about Theodore being the attacker for months. The oversized boots. The mud from the Laurent grounds. The outfit he was wearing when he appeared at my apartment door with soup — the same outfit, minus the balaclava, that the security footage showed breaching the mansion.
I said nothing. For six months, I protected him. Even after he left. Even after the phone call. Even after Isabelle. I shielded his secret because some part of me — the part that still felt his forehead against mine, that still heard "psychí mou" in the dark — couldn't bear to be the one who destroyed him.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, I saw his hand on another woman's waist and an emerald ring on her finger, and the part of me that was still protecting him died.
"You won't tell me how you obtained this information?" Ludwig's voice is clinical now. Evaluating.
"It's complicated."
"What do you want?"
I smile. Small. Detached. The smile of a woman who has burned through every softer emotion and arrived at something clean and cold on the other side.
"You can't give me what I want, Chairman."
He scoffs. "Name it."
"I want to be adopted into the Laurent family."
Ludwig's eyes widen. A genuine reaction from a man who hasn't been genuinely surprised since the last century.
"What?"
"I don't want inheritance. I don't want money. Just the Laurent name. And the access that comes with it."
Ludwig studies me. Recalibrating. The warm croissant grandfather from the steakhouse is gone. This is the King of Wall Street processing a transaction.
"Angel tells me you've been closing deals at an unprecedented rate for six months. Making Adrien more powerful with each quarter." He pauses. "I assumed you'd ask for permission to marry my son."
"Marrying the eldest son of the Laurent family isn't something I'd presume to request."
"But you want adoption."
"I want to be adopted by the family. Not by you specifically."
The distinction registers on his face. He understands — I'm not looking for a father. I'm looking for a fortress. A legitimate platform from which to operate in a world that requires a surname before it lets you sit at the table.
If I'm going to dismantle Theodore Schweitzer's empire, I need standing. I need a name that opens doors he can't close. I need the five-family architecture working for me instead of around me.
"You..." His eyes narrow. Then something shifts — not warmth, but recognition. The look of a man who sees a version of himself in someone else's ruthlessness. "I'll adopt you."
I blink. "What?"
"Though I won't promise this family will welcome you."
"I don't need them to."
"No?"
"I need power. And I need access. Welcome is optional."
Ludwig blinks. "That's remarkably direct."
I stopped looking for family years ago. If my own parents never loved me properly, expecting love from strangers is a luxury I can't afford.
I look out the window. White roses bloom in the garden below. One in particular catches my eye — a white rose with something red on its petals. A stain. Blood or rust or just the cruel trick of morning light.
Tainted.
Somehow, I feel like that rose. A white flower left in someone else's garden. Stained by proximity to violence. Still blooming — but not for anyone. Just because that's what flowers do when nobody remembers to cut them down.
I turn back to Ludwig. Extend my hand.
He takes it. His grip is iron. His eyes carry the particular satisfaction of a man who just acquired an asset he hadn't known was available.
"Welcome to the family, Beatrice Laurent..
Beatrice Laurent.
Sounds good... Just exactly the name who will write the epic of destruction of Theodore Schweitzer.