Chapter 6 - Kayla's Crumbling Façade
"Nina... Nina, please."
The voice was tiny, shrill, and pathetic. It was Kayla.
She came around the head table, her ivory designer gown rustling as she hurried toward me. The diamond engagement ring on her left finger—bought, no doubt, with the hope of cementing a merger with the Vance fortune—flashed under the warm glow of the chandeliers.
"Nina, you can't do this," she pleaded, reaching out to touch my arm.
I took a deliberate step backward, letting her hand fall through empty air.
"Kayla, don't touch me," I said. "You haven't touched me since you were seventeen, unless it was to shove me out of the bathroom so you could do your hair."
"We're sisters!" she cried, big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks, smearing her makeup into jagged black lines. "We grew up together! You can't ruin my wedding over things our parents did years ago! I was just a kid! I didn't know Dennis was doing illegal things with the business! I was just trying to survive too!"
I looked at her, truly looked at her. Beneath the expensive salon highlights and the micro-bladed eyebrows, she was still the same cruel, hollow girl who used to invite her high school friends over to sit on the attic stairs and mock the sound of my weeping through the thin wood.
"You weren't trying to survive, Kayla," I said softly, the words cutting deeper than any scream could have. "You were feasting. You wore my mother's heirloom silver locket to your senior prom after Dennis pried it out of my father’s safety deposit box. You took my college fund and used it to spend a semester in Florence taking selfies on the Ponte Vecchio."
"I'll give it back!" Kayla sobbed, grasping at her throat as if the stolen jewelry were still there. "I'll give back the money! Nina, please, tell Julian's father this is a misunderstanding! If Arthur pulls out, Julian’s family will cancel the wedding! My entire life will be over!"
Julian stepped forward then. He didn't look at Kayla with anger; he looked at her with pure, suffocating disgust.
"Your life won't be over, Kayla," Julian said, his voice flat and dead. "Just your engagement."
Kayla spun around, her eyes wild. "Julian, no! You love me! We picked out the venue! We booked the caterers!"
"We booked *this* caterer," Julian spat, gesturing to the exquisite room around them. "Because you bragged to my mother that you were personal friends with the visionary behind Rosetta’s Table. You told her the owner was an old school friend who owed you a favor. You used this woman’s success to make yourself look important to my family, all while knowing you drove her into the street."
He reached out, took Kayla’s trembling hand, and smoothly slipped the five-carat diamond ring off her finger.
"Julian!" Eleanor screamed, rising from her chair like an enraged bird. "You cannot do this to my daughter! We have a contract! We have an agreement!"
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"Take me to court, Eleanor," Arthur Vance interjected, his voice cutting through her screech. "My attorneys will be more than happy to meet Dennis's attorneys. Provided, of course, that Dennis isn't already wearing an orange jumpsuit by Tuesday."
***
