26. Hannah
The Jasper estate looks exactly like I remember.
Crystal chandeliers dripping light onto marble floors.
A string quartet playing something elegant and forgettable in the corner.
Women in diamonds who look through me like glass, their gazes sliding past without catching, the way they’ve looked past me at every one of these parties for five years.
It doesn’t sting tonight. Tonight it’s fuel.
Prentiss holds court near the grand staircase, accepting congratulations on thirty-five years of making everyone around her miserable. Her dress is silver, her smile is sharp, and her guests orbit her like planets around a cold sun.
The moment we walk through the door, whispers start.
I can feel them rippling through the crowd like wind through grass. Heads turning. Champagne flutes pausing mid-sip. Conversations dying as people elbow their neighbors and nod in our direction.
That’s her. The wife. The divorce. The scandal.
Never mind that the proof went public the very next day, faster even than he promised, and every site that ran the photos had to walk it back. A scandal doesn’t die in rooms like this. It just gets retold.
Good. Let them whisper.
I’m wearing red tonight. The dress I pointedly didn’t wear to my launch, the one I left behind and went back for. The fabric clings to every curve, plunges low in the front, bares my back to the base of my spine. It’s a weapon, and I know exactly how to wield it.
Cameron’s hand tightens on mine. “We can still leave.”
“Not a chance.”
The crowd parts as we walk deeper into the room. Or maybe it doesn’t part so much as pull away, the way people retreat from something dangerous they don’t quite understand. I keep my spine straight and my smile serene and my eyes fixed on the woman at the center of everything.
Prentiss sees us.
I watch it happen: the flicker of shock, the flash of fury, the smooth recovery into that mask of icy politeness she wears like armor. She excuses herself from her circle of admirers and glides toward us, diamonds catching the light with every step.
“Cameron. Hannah.” She doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “I didn’t think you’d have the audacity.”
“And miss your anniversary?” I let my smile sharpen. “We wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Some marriages last.” Her eyes drop to my ring, then back up. “Others require repeated attempts.”
“Thirty-five years is impressive.” I tilt my head, considering. “Though I’ve always wondered what it costs. The constant performance. The careful curation. Making sure no one ever sees behind the curtain.”
Prentiss’s smile goes rigid at the edges.
“My marriage is none of your concern.”
“Neither is mine. And yet here we are.”
The room has gone quiet around us. I can feel the weight of attention, dozens of eyes fixed on this confrontation, society vultures circling and waiting for blood.
“You’ve caused quite enough disruption to this family,” Prentiss says, her voice low and venomous. “The resignation. The broadcast. The endless scandal. And for what? So you could drag my son down to your level?”
“Your son chose his own level.” I step closer. Close enough to watch that flawless composure strain at the seams. “He chose me. Over the company. Over the legacy. Over you. Everything you taught him to put first, he walked away from it. For me.”
“A temporary madness. He’ll regret it.”
“He regrets a lot of things. I’m not one of them.”
Prentiss’s nostrils flare. “You think you’ve won something. You haven’t. You’re still the same charity case who stumbled into my son’s life and refused to leave. The same woman I offered to pay off like a-”
“Like a what?” I cut her off. “Go ahead. Say it. In front of all these witnesses.”
She stops. Recalculates.
“I remember that checkbook,” I continue, loud enough for the nearby guests to hear.
“Two million dollars, wasn’t it? To make the problem go away.
The problem being me.” I let out a breath that’s almost a laugh.
“You tried to buy me off like an inconvenient employee. And when that didn’t work, you threatened your own son with disinheritance.
You weaponized everything you had, money, family, legacy, and it still wasn’t enough.
Because Cameron made his choice.” I hold her gaze without flinching. “And it wasn’t you.”
The silence is deafening.
Prentiss’s face has gone pale beneath her careful makeup. Her mouth opens, closes, opens again. For the first time in my life, I’ve rendered her speechless.
Movement at the edge of my vision. Cameron, stepping toward the bandstand where the string quartet has stopped playing, sensing the shift in the room’s energy.
He takes the microphone.
“Everyone.” His voice cuts through the whispers, commanding attention the way he always has. “If I could have a moment.”
The room stills. Every face turns toward him. I can see Prentiss’s horror, the gleeful anticipation of guests who’ve been waiting for drama all night, the uncertain curiosity of those who don’t know what’s coming.
“I know this is my parents’ party,” Cameron says. “But I’d like to say something about my wife.”
He turns to me. Finds my eyes in the crowd. Holds them.
“Hannah Jasper is the smartest person in any room she walks into. She built a company from nothing, a company that helps people who learn differently, people the world wrote off before they ever got a fair shot. She’s living proof the world was wrong.”
My throat tightens. I blink rapidly, refusing to cry in front of these people.
“She’s been mocked. Dismissed. Underestimated by people who should have known better.” His voice drops. “Including me. Especially me. I neglected her. I humiliated her. I chose work and legacy and family expectation over the woman I swore to cherish.”
The room is utterly silent.
“Most of you saw the broadcast. You know all of this already. But some things deserve to be said in this house, in front of this family.”
“I quit my job because my wife told me I loved it more than I loved her. She was right. So I’m proving her wrong, every day, for the rest of my life.
” He raises his glass. “Hannah is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to this family.
And if this family has a future worth toasting, she’s it. ”
Silence stretches.
Then, from the back of the room, movement.
Jack Jasper rises from his chair. Jack, who has been silent through every family dinner I’ve ever attended. Who has never once contradicted his wife in public. Who I’d written off as a fixture with a pulse.
He raises his glass.
“To Hannah.”
Two words. His only words. And from Jack Jasper, who hasn’t spoken up for anyone or anything in decades, everything.
The toast ripples outward. Glasses lift throughout the room. Voices murmur the words, some reluctant, some genuine, all of them acknowledging what just happened.
Prentiss stands frozen for a long moment. Then, slowly, mechanically, she raises her champagne.
She doesn’t drink.
But she doesn’t fight.
I’ve won.
The realization washes over me like warm water.
Not just survived. Not just endured. Won.
In front of everyone who ever looked down on me, everyone who whispered about the hobby wife, everyone who assumed I’d eventually slink away in defeat, I won.
And the strangest part is how quiet it feels.
Not fireworks. Just a door closing somewhere, softly, on a version of me that’s done apologizing.
Cameron crosses to me, takes my hand. “Ready to go?”
“God, yes.”
We slip out through a side door before anyone can corner us for congratulations or condolences or whatever social obligation this crowd considers appropriate. The night air hits my face, cool and clean, and I laugh, actually laugh, the sound bubbling up from somewhere deep.
“Did you see her face?” I gasp as we hurry toward the waiting car. “When your father stood up? I thought she was going to shatter.”
“Thirty-five years of marriage and I’ve never seen him do anything like that.” Cameron opens the limo door for me. “I think he’s been saving it.”
I slide inside, the leather cool against my bare back. Cameron follows, pulling the door shut behind him, and suddenly the noise of the party is gone. Just us. Just the quiet hum of the engine and the distant glow of the estate through tinted windows.
“We did it,” I breathe. “We actually did it.”
“You did it.” He pulls me against him, one arm around my waist. “I just provided backup.”
“Pretty good backup.” I turn in his arms, hook my leg over his lap, straddle him in one smooth motion. “I think you deserve a reward.”
His hands find my hips, steadying me. “Hannah-”
“The partition’s up.” I’m already working at his tie, loosening the knot. “And I’ve been thinking about this since you took that microphone.”
“Since the microphone?”
“Since you read my speech back to me at two in the morning.” I pull the tie free, toss it aside. “Since you stood in the rain with those papers in your hand.” My fingers move to his shirt buttons. “Since you chose me over everything you were raised to believe mattered.”
“Hannah.” His voice is rough now, his grip on my hips tightening. “If you keep talking like that-”
“What? You’ll lose control?” I lean in, brush my lips against his jaw. “Good. I want you to lose control. I want you desperate and wrecked and completely at my mercy.”
His groan is gratifying. His hands slide down to the hem of my dress, pushing the fabric up my thighs.
“This dress,” he mutters. “Do you have any idea what this dress has been doing to me all night?”
“Why do you think I wore it?”
I kiss him before he can respond. Deep and demanding, my hands fisted in his hair, my body pressing against his. He tastes like champagne and victory and everything I almost lost.
His hands are everywhere. My thighs, my back, the zipper at my hip that he finds with unerring accuracy.
The dress loosens around me and I shrug it off my shoulders, let it pool at my waist. I slide down onto the floor of the limo between his legs.
“Stay still,” I tell him. I take him into my mouth, sucking the head, tongue swirling.
He curses, hand in my hair. I take him deeper, bobbing my head, one hand stroking what doesn’t fit.
He’s thick and heavy on my tongue. I hum around him and he groans, hips twitching.
“Fuck, Hannah. Your mouth-”
I pull off with a wet pop, grin up at him, and say, “Now stop talking.”
I climb back onto his lap, dress still bunched around my waist. I line him up and sink down onto his cock in one slow slide. The stretch makes me moan. He fills me so deep I can feel him everywhere.
“God.” He pulls back just far enough to look at me. “You’re so beautiful it makes me stupid.”
“I know.” I start to ride him hard, hands braced on his shoulders, hips rolling and bouncing.
The red dress stays on, fabric brushing his thighs.
He reaches under it, fingers finding my clit, rubbing fast while I fuck myself on his cock.
His other hand slides up to my breast, pinching my nipple through the dress.
“Take what you want,” he rasps. “Use me.”
I do. I grind down, circling my hips, then lift up and slam back down. The limo sways with us. He sucks on my neck, biting, then moves to my nipple, pulling the dress down just enough to get his mouth on it. He sucks hard, tongue flicking, while his fingers keep working my clit.
I come first, pussy clenching around him, crying out as pleasure rips through me. He grabs my hips and thrusts up into me, hard and fast, chasing his own. “I’ve got you,” he groans. “I’ve always got you.”
He comes deep inside me, cock pulsing, face buried in my neck. I keep moving slow through it, milking him until he’s shaking.
After, we lie tangled together across the back seat of the limo. My dress is a wrinkled disaster. His shirt is missing half its buttons. We’re both breathing like we’ve run a marathon.
“We should probably tell the driver we’re ready to go home,” I murmur against his chest.
“Probably.” He doesn’t move. “In a minute.”
“Or ten.”
“Or ten.”
His fingers drift up and down my bare arm. The partition stays up. The world stays out.
“So,” he says eventually. “I’m asking again.”
“Asking what?”
“The question you told me to earn.” He pulls back, meets my eyes. “Marry me again, Hannah.”
I touch his face. The stubble along his jaw. The laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. The face of a man who burned his whole life down and rebuilt it around me.
“Yes,” I say. “To all of it.”