15. Jo
— ? —
Jo
The firm’s annual charity gala is on Saturday.
Skipping it seems like the obvious choice. After Brittany’s ambush at the office, after the kidnapping attempt, after everything, walking into a room full of people who’ve probably heard every lie the Andersons are spreading sounds like torture.
But Nick convinces me to come.
“Show them you’re not afraid,” he says, adjusting his cufflinks in the mirror. “Show them they can’t break you.”
The dress Grace picked out is black and simple, elegant in a way that feels like armor. The fabric hugs without clinging, the neckline high enough for respectability but cut to show just enough collarbone. War paint, Grace called it when she zipped it up. Battle dress.
Nick arrives to pick me up looking devastating in a tuxedo, and the urge to skip the gala and drag him straight to the bedroom is almost overwhelming.
“You look...” He pauses in the doorway, eyes traveling from my heels to my hair. “You look like you’re about to destroy someone.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s the highest one I know how to give.”
The ballroom glitters with champagne and money. Crystal chandeliers cast everything in warm light. Women in designer gowns drift past men in suits that cost more than most people’s cars. The air smells like expensive perfume and ambition.
Staying close to Nick, meeting clients, accepting congratulations on the Hargrove project. The designs that kept us up all those late nights are paying off, the firm’s reputation has skyrocketed, and everyone wants to shake the hand of the woman behind the now-famous atrium.
For an hour, almost two, the evening seems manageable.
Then a flash of white across the room makes my stomach drop.
Brittany. Of course she’s here. Of course she couldn’t stay away.
She’s wearing white, angelic, innocent, poisonous, a choice that’s so obviously calculated it would be funny if it weren’t terrifying. She’s watching me with that same predatory smile from the office, the one that says she’s planning something.
Turning away, hoping to avoid another confrontation. But Brittany isn’t interested in being avoided. Within minutes, she cuts through the crowd, a shark through water, and plants herself directly in my path.
“You’ve got some nerve showing up here.” Her voice is pitched to carry, loud enough for nearby guests to hear. “After what you did to me at the office.”
“What I did to you?” Keeping my voice calm takes effort, but the effort pays off. “You grabbed me. You threatened my son.”
Brittany steps in close, close enough that the crowd can’t hear, and her voice drops into something almost intimate.
“Did you like my little notes, Jo? All those nights you triple-checked your locks. I wanted you to feel it. To know someone was always watching, always one step behind that precious little life of yours.” Her smile is poison.
“And who do you think mentioned which school he goes to, to the people who needed to know? You really should keep a closer eye on that boy.”
The floor tilts under me. The notes. The woman at his school. All of it, her, threaded through every sleepless night of the past two months. Not Nick’s parents, the way he had guessed. Brittany. Picking at me for sport while the Andersons aimed at bigger things.
Then she straightens, and the public mask snaps back into place, and her voice climbs again for the watching crowd.
“I was trying to have a civil conversation, and you attacked me.”
“That’s not what happened, and you know it.”
“Do I?” Brittany’s smile sharpens. She’s playing to the crowd now, the realization dawns slowly. Performing for witnesses. “Because the way I remember it, you’re a homewrecker who trapped her husband, hid his child for seven years, and is now trying to seduce his brother for money.”
People are looking. Whispers spreading like wildfire through dry grass. Phones are coming out, held low but recording.
“That’s not what happened.”
“No? Then why did you hide Matthias’s child for seven years?” Brittany’s voice rises, theatrical, making absolutely certain everyone in earshot catches every word. “Why did you seduce his brother the moment you got the chance? You’re nothing but a manipulative slut who...”
The champagne hits my face before the sentence finishes.
Cold liquid drips down my cheeks, my chin, soaking the front of my dress. Brittany stands there holding the empty glass, triumphant, waiting for me to crumble. Waiting for tears. Hysteria. Something she can use.
I wipe the champagne from my eyes slowly, deliberately, and meet her gaze without flinching.
“Feel better?”
Brittany’s smile falters. This wasn’t the script she rehearsed.
“You know what your problem is, Brittany?” Stepping closer, voice dropping low enough that only she can hear.
“You thought marrying him would make you happy. You thought if you could just get what I had, everything would be perfect. But it’s not, is it?
He cheats on you too. He lies to you too.
And instead of blaming him, you blame me. ”
“Shut up.”
“I’m not your enemy. I never was. But you’re so desperate to believe you won something that you can’t see the truth.” A tilt of the head, studying her like she’s a specimen under glass. “He doesn’t love you. He’s not capable of love. And deep down, you know it.”
Her hand comes up fast.
The slap is weak, more performance than force, designed to provoke rather than hurt. Playing the victim. Making me the aggressor.
I decide in a split second.
“You threw champagne in my face. You slapped me. In front of a whole ballroom of witnesses.” A smile spreads across my face, genuine, satisfied. “Thank you for that.”
My fist connects with her nose.
The impact is solid, satisfying, sending a shock of pain up my arm that’s completely worth it. Brittany yelps, stumbles backward, her hands flying to her face. Blood streams from her nostrils, bright red against the pristine white of her dress.
The room goes silent.
Nick appears at my side, his face carefully blank, giving nothing away. “Brittany. Security is waiting to escort you out.”
“She hit me!” Brittany shrieks, the composed socialite facade crumbling into something ugly. Blood drips between her fingers. “You all saw it! She...”
“After you threw a drink in her face and slapped her,” Nick says coolly. “Yes, we all saw that too. Security cameras got a great angle.” He turns to the approaching guards. “Please escort Mrs. Anderson out. She’s not welcome here.”
“You can’t do this! Matthias...”
“Isn’t here.” Nick’s voice is ice. “And even if he were, this is my event. My company. My decision.”
Brittany is dragged away, still screaming threats and obscenities, blood blooming across her white dress in a spreading stain. The doors close behind her, cutting off her voice mid-shriek.
Standing in the middle of the ballroom, champagne-soaked, hand throbbing, and absolutely refusing to look ashamed.
Nick takes off his jacket. Drapes it around my shoulders, warm and smelling like him.
“Let’s go,” he murmurs.
“But the gala...”
“Fuck the gala.”
His hand finds mine and leads me out, past the staring guests, past the whispered conversations, past the phones still recording. My head stays high the entire way.
The car is waiting at the curb. The driver opens the door without comment, professional as always. The leather seat is cool against my champagne-damp skin.
And then the laughter starts.
It bubbles up from somewhere deep, impossible to contain, the absurdity of it all, the champagne, the punch, the blood on Brittany’s white dress. “I just punched my ex-husband’s wife at a charity gala. In front of a whole ballroom of people.”
Nick starts laughing too. The sound knocks years off him, makes him look younger, lighter. “You were magnificent.”
“I’m probably going to be arrested.”
“Worth it.”
“My hand really hurts.”
“We’ll get you ice.”
The laughter fades into something deeper. He’s looking at me with that expression, the one that makes my chest tight, the one that says I matter more than I’m ready to believe.
“God, I love you,” he whispers.
“I love you too.”
He kisses me. Soft at first, tasting the champagne still on my lips, then harder, deeper.
“Take me home,” I whisper against his mouth.
He does.