11. Chapter Eleven
Margo steps inside the house, and the world freezes. Her heels click against the floor, slicing through the warmth of the party like a knife.
CC stiffens in Ethan’s arms, her tiny fingers gripping his shirt tighter, like she wants to disappear.
Margo’s eyes land on her daughter first, lips curving into something too sharp to be a real smile. “Well, hello, my child.” Her voice drips with mock sweetness. “Aren’t you excited to see me?”
CC presses her face into Ethan’s chest, shrinking. “Daddy…”
Margo tilts her head, smirk widening. “No hug? Nothing?”
Ethan’s grip tightens. “Stop, Margo. Just stop.”
She barely acknowledges him. Her attention shifts—locking onto me.
“I see my husband and daughter aren’t happy to see me.” Her voice is smooth, practiced, razor-sharp. “Probably because of you.”
Before I can move, before I can even breathe—she slaps me. Hard.
The force jerks my head sideways, heat exploding across my cheek.
Gasps ripple through the room.
The entire party falls into stunned silence. My ears ring. My skin burns. Humiliation sinks in before the pain even registers.
Ethan’s voice is lethal. “Margo.” He tucks CC into his shoulder more, keeping her from seeing whatever is about to happen.
Margo just smiles, satisfied and amused, like she just proved a point.
She leans in, voice dropping just enough for only me to hear.
"Is that how you get ahead, Valeria?" The words drip from her lips, slow, cruel. "By fucking someone that isn't yours? Or by sleeping your way to the top?"
The room doesn’t breathe. I don’t move. Because if the slap humiliated me, this destroys me. Even though I know it’s not true. Ethan is the only person I’ve ever slept with, I’ve worked hard for everything I have, but it still hurts.
The weight of her words presses down, suffocating, wrapping around my ribs, curling around my throat. My cheek still stings, but it’s nothing compared to the way my stomach twists, the way I feel every single set of eyes locked on me, watching, waiting.
Hannah walks up behind us, taking CC from Ethan’s arms as he moves beside me, his entire body coiled, voice controlled but razor-sharp. “Margo, that’s enough.”
She doesn’t look at him. Her focus stays on me, gaze dragging over me like she’s sizing up something cheap and disposable. “She really thinks she belongs here, doesn’t she?”
Ethan clenches his fists. “Don’t do this.”
Margo ignores him, her voice carrying through the stunned silence. “She really thinks spreading her legs for my husband gets her a place at this table?”
The air thickens. The whispers start. My stomach twists.
Ethan takes a step forward, jaw tight. “You don’t get to talk about her like that.”
Margo smirks. “Why not? It’s the truth, isn’t it?” She turns toward the crowd, feeding off the attention, the power shift. “Tell me, is that how it works now? Sleep with the right man, and suddenly your family? In case you forgot, I’m his wife.”
Ethan moves again, but Nina steps in first.
“Almost ex-wife,” Nina corrects, voice steady, slicing through the tension like a blade. “You just need to sign.”
Margo whips toward her. “Stay out of this, Nina.”
Nina doesn’t flinch. “Oh, honey, this is my brother, my niece, my family. I am in this.”
Drew shakes his head. “No one invited you, Margo. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Ryan lets out an unimpressed breath. “Nothing new there.”
Margo’s hands clench into fists, her control slipping. She turns toward Ethan, voice rising. “You don’t know a damn thing about what I’ve been through.”
Grant steps forward, voice calm but unshakable. “Unless something dramatic has happened in the year since you left your daughter, we all know what you’ve ‘been through’.”
Margo whips toward him, but before she can fire back, Hannah steps in. “You don’t just get to show up here and act like nothing happened.”
Margo exhales sharply, shaking her head, hands flaring out. “Nothing happened? I was out there working. Making something of myself while Ethan played single father and let some skater girl step into my place.”
She spins back to me, eyes burning. “Did you enjoy it? Sliding into my life? Sleeping in my husband’s bed? Playing mommy to my daughter?”
I don’t flinch. But I feel it.
"You really think he’ll keep you?" she murmurs. "You think you belong here?"
The voices around us swell, colliding.
Ethan snaps, stepping in front of me. "You’re the one who walked away, Margo!"
"You don’t get to play the victim when you’re the one who left!" Nina fires back.
Drew’s voice cuts through. "This isn’t about Valeria. This is about you not wanting to lose."
Margo’s voice rises. “I didn’t lose! This is my family! My husband!”
Grant’s voice booms, final and unwavering. “Not anymore.”
Hannah steps forward. “Enough, Margo.”
The shouting continues, voices overlapping. But I don’t hear it anymore.
Because I hear something else.
A small, broken sob. The kind that cuts through everything. CC is crying.
Her small body trembles in Hannah’s arms, fingers curled tightly into her shirt, pressing into her grandmother like she’s trying to disappear.
And suddenly, nothing else matters.
I move without thinking, reaching for her. Hannah hesitates for only a second before letting me take her. The moment she’s in my arms, her little hands grip my dress, her face pressing into my shoulder, her whole body shaking with quiet sniffles.
I whisper, my voice steady even though my heart is racing. “It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.”
She doesn’t lift her head, doesn’t let go, just burrows deeper, holding on like I’m the only thing keeping her safe.
Ethan is still beside me, still tense, radiating barely contained rage.
But Margo moves. Her heels click against the floor. She reaches for CC.
“Let go of my daughter.” Her voice is sharp, I can see she’s trying to maintain control, but she’s becoming more and more unhinged.
CC whimpers, her tiny frame pressing deeper into me, shaking her head.
Ethan steps forward, voice dark. “Margo, don’t.”
She doesn’t listen. She grabs CC’s arm—too hard. CC cries out in pain and fear.
My head snaps down and I see it. Margo’s nails digging into CC’s skin.
Something inside me ignites.
I rip CC away, stepping back, arms tightening protectively. My voice isn’t loud. It isn’t a scream. It’s a growl. A warning. A promise. “Do not. Touch. Her.”
Ethan moves between us, voice like steel. “You need to leave.”
Margo doesn’t back down. She turns on me, eyes burning with resentment, sharp and unforgiving. Her gaze doesn’t just land on me—it cuts through me, piercing into every insecurity I refuse to acknowledge.
“This is your fault,” she spits, her voice dripping with accusation, feeding off the chaos she created.
CC whimpers against me, her tiny frame trembling, fingers curling tighter into my dress like she’s trying to disappear. I hold her closer, arms tightening protectively, but Margo keeps going, her voice rising, her fury unchecked. “You turned my family against me. You took my place. You think you belong here?”
Ethan moves between us, shoulders squared, his voice low and firm, leaving no room for argument. “I said, you need to leave.”
The tension thickens, pressing against my ribs, making it harder to breathe. Margo’s chest rises and falls too fast, her hands still clenched into fists, her jaw set like she refuses to be the one who backs down. But then her eyes flick to CC, a flicker of something crossing her face—anger, regret, something twisted and bitter that she refuses to let go of.
Hannah steps forward, voice gentle but unwavering. “Come here, sweetheart.”
CC hesitates, her grip tightening one last time, her small fingers trembling against the fabric of my dress. My arms ache at the thought of letting her go, but I press a kiss to the top of her head.
Slowly, hesitantly, she loosens her grip, fingers slipping away as I carefully pass her back to Hannah. The loss is immediate, the warmth of her small body gone in an instant, leaving behind an emptiness that settles deep in my chest. Grant moves beside them, his silent presence reassuring, watchful, a quiet force ensuring that Margo doesn’t try anything else.
But I barely register it.
Because Ethan is already gripping Margo’s arm, pulling her toward the door with the same restrained fury that has been simmering beneath his skin since she walked in the door. She stumbles slightly in her heels, but she doesn’t resist as hard this time, as if she finally understands that she has lost control of the moment. She whips her head back, one last glance toward CC, but her daughter doesn’t even look at her.
The door slams shut behind them, the sound reverberating through the house like the final nail in what I should have known was temporary.
The party doesn’t recover. Conversations don’t immediately start up again. People shift awkwardly, whispering behind hands, stealing glances at me, at the place where Ethan and Margo just stood, at CC tucked safely into her grandmother’s arms. The warmth that filled the house earlier is gone, the celebration drained from the air, replaced with a thick, suffocating weight that no one wants to be the first to acknowledge.
I don’t move. I don’t speak. Because I know exactly what just happened.
Margo didn’t just come here to make a scene. She didn’t just come back to see CC. She came back for Ethan.
And she wants her family back.
That realization settles deep, twisting through my ribs, pressing down on me in a way that feels inescapable. I feel it in my bones, in the way my fingers curl into my palms, in the way my chest tightens like it’s bracing for impact.
I don’t belong here.
I don’t belong in the middle of whatever unfinished mess still exists between Ethan and the life he had before me. I don’t belong standing in this house, surrounded by a family that has existed long before I ever stepped into it.
I have Nationals to win.
I have a career, a future, a dream I have spent my entire life chasing, one that has never included anything beyond the ice.
And whatever this was—me and Ethan, the thing we were building, the thing I let myself believe could be real—was never meant to last.
It’s already over.
I turn to leave, my body moving before my mind fully catches up.
I pull out my phone, my fingers hovering over the screen. Mom? An Uber? I’m not sure, but I need to get out of here. Nina’s voice cuts through the thick silence, stopping me in my tracks. “Val.”
I don’t want to look at her, don’t want to see whatever concern is written across her face, don’t want to let her sympathy pull me back into something I’ve already decided to walk away from. But when she reaches out, her fingers brushing against my wrist, I pause just enough to feel the warmth of her touch.
“It’s going to be okay,” she says softly, like she believes it.
I wish I could believe it too.
But I don’t.
So I don’t answer.
Instead, I pull my wrist free from her grasp, step away from the wreckage left behind, and walk out the door.