CHAPTER 238: THE PERFORMANCE ENDS

ADRIEN’S POV

The night air was crisp, cutting through the scent of expensive cologne and celebratory dinner. I watched, my jaw tight, as the car carrying Isabella and her family pulled away, their taillights vanished at the corner, leaving only the quiet hum of the restaurant’s private drive. Their departure was the formal closing of the public performance, the final act in the grand charade of the engagement party. But for me, and more importantly, for my mother, the real battles were just beginning.

My mother’s voice broke the silence.

"Oh, dear," she murmured, her tone a carefully constructed note of frailty. "I seem to have left my purse inside. I’ll just pop back in to retrieve it."

Before she could even take a step, Mrs. Gable, one of her ever-present attendants, a woman whose stoutness seemed to amplify her already formidable sense of duty, moved forward. Her face was a practiced tableau of professional concern. "Madam, allow me—your maid will fetch it instantly."

My mother raised a graceful, bejeweled hand, her smile a silken dismissal. "No, no, Mrs. Gable. It’s quite alright. I ate far too much of that delicious cake. A little walk will do me good."

I gave her a barely perceptible nod, a silent acknowledgment of the impending storm. She turned, her back ramrod straight, her posture embodying an unruffled elegance that was as much a shield as it was an inheritance. It belied the tempest she was maneuvering towards, the carefully chosen words designed to deflect and endure. I followed, my own steps measured, falling into the role of her silent shadow as we re-entered the gilded lobby. Our attendants and security, as instructed, kept a respectful, yet watchful, distance.

The air inside was thick with the residue of forced merriment and unspoken tensions. It was here, in the echoing marble expanse, that the true undercurrents of the evening, the ones carefully masked for the benefit of the Isabella’s clan, began to surface.

The lobby’s marble floor gleamed beneath the chandelier light, every polished surface catching fractured reflections of us — of him, looming large and immovable. The glass doors beyond showed only our shadows, doubled and warped. Even the staff behind the front desk had frozen, heads bowed, pretending to shuffle papers while their eyes betrayed their listening. Security flanked the edges of the room, hands clasped but tense, as if waiting for a cue. The air itself seemed to tighten, like the building was holding its breath.

Not even a minute later, my father’s voice, a low growl that vibrated with a fury barely contained by the expensive brandy he’d no doubt been liberally sampling, ripped through the air. It carried with it the cloying scent of oak and wounded pride.

"...humiliating, Elise. In front of them all. Laughing like a market woman. Air-kissing strangers like some untrained peasant. Playing hostess like some untrained commoner. You made a mockery of this family."

My mother voice faltered only a fraction. "Henry—"

But he was already snarling, his voice dropping to a low, venomous hiss that was infinitely more cutting than any shout. "Gushing over that... that nobody he dragged in here! You embarrassed yourself, Elise. You embarrassed me in front of everyone."

My mother stood her ground, though I saw the faint flush that crept up her neck, a tell-tale sign of the humiliation she wouldn’t openly display. "I have every right to defend my son and his choice—"

"Your son is a fool who’s thinking with his—"

I was already moving. The carefully constructed calm of the lobby shattered as I strode forward, my own anger a cold, hard knot in my chest. Inside, the words landed harder, sharper. His contempt was a blade, wielded with brutal efficiency, slicing without care for the wounds it inflicted. I saw Mother’s chin stay high, her regal composure a defiant flag in the face of his onslaught, but I also saw it—the slight, involuntary tightening at her throat, the hairline fracture in the facade she would never show him.

"Enough."

The room stilled. My father turned slowly, the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth. "Ah. The prodigal son."

I stepped between them, my voice even. "How dare you speak to her like that."

His smirk deepened, venom curling under it. "And who are you to interfere in matters between husband and wife? You’ve always been too much your mother’s son. Soft. Blind. Honestly, watching you and your mother behave so stupidly tonight made me sick."

"Soft. Blind."

The words were meant to sting, a calculated jab aimed at the weakness Henry Walton had always perceived in his son—the inherent inability to be as ruthless, as purely predatory, as he was. But the insult didn’t pierce me; it merely bounced against the armor of years of expectation and strategic silence.

I stepped closer, not fast but inevitable. "If I am soft," I said, my voice even, "it is the softness of silk around a steel core. The kind that bends without breaking—and cuts when it must."

My gaze was fixed on him, a cold, unblinking assessment. Henry, despite his age and eroding control, was still a large man, accustomed to dominating every space he occupied. But tonight, that dominance was meeting a wall it could not breach. His face was mottled with fury.

"That woman you paraded," Henry went on, trying to recover, "is who you’ve been calling your girlfriend? Your personal assistant? I thought she was just a toy. It seems you’ve inherited your mother’s foolishness."

My fury, already simmering, flared into a roaring blaze. The words hit me like physical blows, not just for Isabella, but for my mother, for everything he had always belittled. My hands clenched into fists, my jaw tightening until it ached.

My father, oblivious or simply uncaring of my barely contained rage, continued, his voice dropping to a chillingly practical tone. "I’ll play along for now, Adrien. This... arrangement. But in two years, she must be gone. By then, she will have given you an heir, and her usefulness will have run its course──"

My jaw clenched, the words a physical ache in my throat. Two years. An heir. Usefulness. The callousness of his pronouncement, the utter disregard for Isabella’s personhood, ignited a fire I’d been painstakingly controlling. My mother, sensing the shift, placed a delicate hand on my arm, her touch a silent plea for restraint.

"You will do no such thing," I stated, my voice low and devoid of emotion, a predator’s calm before the strike. Father’s amusement flickered, a cruel glint in his eyes. He saw my calm as weakness, still.