Chapter 5
Genevieve’s knees went weak. The crystal flute in her hand slipped through her numb fingers, hitting the floor with a sharp, violent shatter that made several guests flinch. Champagne pooled across the toes of her silver heels, but she didn't look down.
Her gaze was locked onto Arthur Blackwood.
"Julian..." Genevieve whispered, her voice cracking into high, shrill panic as she grabbed his bicep with claw-like fingers. "Julian, who is that? Why did she call him Grandpa? Who is that man?"
Julian couldn't answer. His throat had closed completely. His fair, rosy skin had turned the color of damp parchment. He had spent three years trying to secure a five-minute meeting with Arthur Blackwood’s junior investment officers; he had memorized the man’s face from every Forbes profile, every Wall Street journal, every private equity directory.
"That's... that's Arthur Blackwood," Julian stammered, his American accent fracturing into terrified disarray. "That’s the Chairman of the Blackwood Trust."
"Why does your daughter know him?!" Genevieve hissed, shaking his arm. "Julian, answer me!"
From the middle of the ballroom floor, Eleanor stepped forward. Her heels clicked with a steady, rhythmic cadence that sounded like the countdown of an explosive device. She walked past the rows of petrified socialites, her head held high, until she reached the base of the dais.
"Father," Eleanor said softly.
Arthur looked down at his daughter. The iron mask around his features cracked for a fraction of a second, his gray eyes shining with an immense, painful relief.
"Eleanor," Arthur replied, his voice thick with emotion. "You're home."
"I am," Eleanor said, turning around to face the ballroom, standing at her father’s right hand. "And I'm done playing their game."
Julian felt the floor drop out from beneath his feet. The breath left his lungs in a ragged gasp. "Father? Eleanor... you're... you're Eleanor Blackwood?"
"Did you really think my surname was Vance, Julian?" Eleanor looked at him with an expression of pure, unadulterated contempt. "I told you five years ago that my family was in shipping and infrastructure. You assumed my father was a mechanic because he had grease on his cuffs when he met you at the diner. You never bothered to look past your own vanity."
"No... no, this is a mistake," Julian stammered, taking a stumbling step toward the stage, his hands raised in supplication. "Eleanor, darling, listen to me! There’s been a misunderstanding! Genevieve didn't mean—"
"Silence," Arthur Blackwood commanded.
He didn't shout. He didn't raise his hand. But Julian’s jaw snapped shut as if wired together by an external force.
Arthur handed Maya gently to Eleanor, who cradled the girl against her shoulder. Then, the old titan stepped down from the dais, his polished shoes crunching softly over the shattered crystal of Genevieve’s champagne glass.
He stopped three feet from Genevieve.
At twenty-nine, Genevieve was used to men bending to her smile, her lineage, her couture dresses. But beneath Arthur Blackwood’s gaze, she felt like an insect pinned beneath a magnifying glass in the noon sun.
"You," Arthur said, his eyes scanning her trembling frame. "You struck a five-year-old child."
"Mr. Blackwood, please!" Genevieve wept, tears ruining her expensive mascara. "She ran into me! She threw red punch across a thirty-thousand-dollar gown! I didn't know who she was! I swear to God, I didn't know she was yours!"
"So if she belonged to a maid," Arthur whispered, his voice deadly and cold, "you would have had the right to break her bones?"
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"No! That's not what I meant!"
"You struck my blood," Arthur said, leaning in until his breath ruffled the diamonds at her ear. "And tonight, I am going to strip every single thing your father owns from the face of this earth."
