Chapter 5: Public Humiliation

Her name was Ella White.

She was the heiress of White Group and Karen’s childhood friend.

By the time Evelyn came downstairs, the living room was already packed.

Young men and women from several wealthy families had come to watch the spectacle.

Ella sat in the very center of the sofa like the mistress of the estate.

The moment she saw Evelyn, she stood with a cold laugh.

“Oh, so this is my dear ‘stepmother’?”

She deliberately emphasized the word with contempt.

“You do look rather seductive.”

“No wonder you managed to enchant a man nearly fifty years old.”

The crowd erupted into laughter.

Evelyn remained expressionless.

“Miss White, did you need something?”

“Need something?”

Ella walked around her as though inspecting something dirty.

“I just came to see how shameless a woman could be.”

“Arthur Uncle’s funeral has barely ended, and you’re already desperate to seduce his son.”

“I didn’t.”

Evelyn’s voice was calm.

“You didn’t?”

Ella stopped abruptly.

Her voice rose sharply.

“A twenty-one-year-old girl marries a forty-eight-year-old man.”

“If it wasn’t for money, what else could it possibly be?”

“His age?”

“That he didn’t bathe?”

“Now the old man is dead, yet you still refuse to leave.”

“Who do you think can’t see through that disgusting little plan of yours?”

Someone held up a phone and livestreamed everything.

The comments were filled with insults calling Evelyn a husband-killing gold digger and demanding that she leave the Blackwood family.

Evelyn’s fingertips tightened slightly.

She knew that if she argued back now, tomorrow’s headlines would be edited into another wave of scandal.

She was waiting for the right moment.

But Ella clearly had no intention of giving her any dignity.

Seeing that Evelyn remained silent, Ella became even more pleased with herself.

She lifted a glass of champagne and held it over Evelyn’s head.

“I’ll teach you a rule.”

“In our circle, when you meet the true mistress of the house, you lower your head and pay respect.”

“Now kneel.”

“And apologize.”

“Say you should never have dreamed of belonging here.”

“Say a fallen heiress like you has no right to step into the Blackwood estate.”

The golden champagne tilted.

It was about to pour directly over Evelyn’s head.

Not one person in the room spoke.

Then Evelyn moved.

She did not dodge.

Instead, she raised her hand and caught Ella’s wrist.

Her grip was not particularly strong, yet it was astonishingly steady.

The champagne stopped in midair.

“Miss White.”

Evelyn looked up.

There were no tears in her eyes.

Only frozen calm.

“You can drink whatever you like.”

“But be careful with your words.”

“I married Arthur Blackwood.”

“We had a legal marriage, and it was protected by law.”

“But you…”

Her gaze swept across the cameras filling the room.

Her voice carried clearly through the room.

“You are an unmarried heiress who stormed into another man’s home with a crowd of people.”

“And you publicly forced a widow to kneel.”

“Tomorrow’s headlines…”

“Guess whose lack of manners they’ll be about.”

Ella’s expression changed.

She tried to yank her hand free.

The seemingly delicate hand holding her remained completely immovable.

“You! Let go of me!”

“Apologize.”

Evelyn’s voice was flat.

“In your dreams!”

Ella was furious and embarrassed.

She suddenly jerked her wrist upward.

The entire glass of champagne splashed across Evelyn’s white dress.

The champagne ran down beneath her chin.

The entire room erupted.

Ella smiled triumphantly and raised her hand to slap Evelyn again.

“You shameless bitch!”

But the slap never landed.

At some point, someone had appeared in the shadows of the second-floor corridor.

Karen stood there with one hand in his pocket, leaning against the railing.

He looked down at everything from above.

The provocation.

The champagne.

The raised hand.

He had seen it all.

Yet he said nothing.

He did not come downstairs.

Instead, he watched with apparent interest as the woman standing drenched before him kept her back perfectly straight.

Their eyes met.

Evelyn’s heart sank.

He was not going to help her.

He had done it intentionally.

The farce did not end until late at night.

Evelyn had just changed clothes when someone knocked on her door.

Karen’s personal assistant stood outside with a perfectly professional expression.

“Miss Thorne, Mr. Blackwood would like to see you in the study.”

“Now.”

The clock on the wall pointed to eleven at night.