“Yaoyao, why aren't you going in?”
Marcella's sweet, simpering voice drifted up behind me.
I'd barely turned around when she snatched my hand and yanked hard, throwing herself backward.
By the time I understood what was happening, James had already come out of the private room, carefully easing Marcella up into his arms.
She huddled against his chest, eyes rimmed with red. ：“James, don't blame Yaoyao. I'm sure she didn't mean it……”
James's gaze cut toward me, sharp as a blade. “Apologize.”
Two cold words, and just like that, I was guilty.
I clutched the plastic bag and tried to defend myself. ：“It wasn't me. I didn't push her……”
“Let it go, James. If Yaoyao says it wasn't her, then it wasn't her.” Marcella played the picture of grace and understanding.
Her mouth said she didn't care, but her body just happened to reveal the scrape across her palm.
James's brow knit, the chill around him deepening. ：“Constance. Apologize. Don't make me say it a third time.”
A few of the rich boys from the room spilled out to watch the show.
“Just apologize already, Constance. James won't lift a finger for you anyway. Ha—haven't you noticed there's no one standing behind you?”
“Pushes someone over and still acts like she's in the right! Who does she think she is, Marcella? Everybody's darling?”
“No wonder she can't have kids. Probably because she's racked up so much bad karma the heavens won't grant her any, so she can never sit steady as Mrs. Rowe.”
Listening to the steady drip of their mockery, my long-dead heart gave a dull, aching throb.
The deaths of those four children had always been a thorn buried in my chest.
“Constance, my patience has limits.” James's face darkened.
Marcella cooed her fake comfort. ：“It's all right, James. Yaoyao is Mrs. Rowe, after all. I'm just a nobody, a little commoner. How could I ever measure up to Mrs. Rowe?”
I'd already dug up everything about her background. I lifted my eyes to her, my pale lips curving faintly. ：“Do you really have no background?”
Something guilty flickered in the depths of her eyes.
She shrank back behind James as if frightened.
His brow furrowed as he shielded her behind him. “Constance, you'd threaten Marcie right in front of me?”
“Someone get over here. Make her kneel right there. She doesn't get up until we're done.”
The bodyguards trailing him stepped forward at once and forced me down onto the floor, rough and unceremonious.
Bone struck concrete with a hard crack, and the pain pulled a sharp gasp out of me.
Before they went back into the room, I clawed desperately at the hem of James's trousers, my voice low and pleading. ：“James, that peace pendant on your neck. Give it back to me.”
“I'll kneel two days and two nights. Just give me back the peace pendant.”
James reached up and touched it, then kicked my hand away, looking down at me from on high. ：“It's a piece of junk. You actually think I want it?”
“When we're finished in there, I'll give it back.”
The door shut. I knelt there, numb. Now and then a passing guest pointed and whispered. I heard none of it.
I don't know how long it had been when the thick smell of smoke suddenly reached me, and the next second the door swung open.
My voice came out raw. ：“James, the peace pendant……”
Before I could finish, he hauled me up by the arm. “The room's on fire. Move.”
He had Marcella tucked against his other side. She slid me a glance, unreadable, then said in a worried tone, ：“James, this is all my fault. I didn't keep that fire under control…… Yaoyao's peace pendant is still in there. Let me go back for it.”
