Letitia was fragile. She needed this tiara to secure her place.
The applause lingered long after the final bid. The charity auction was over.
Letitia wore the tiara, the one that carried my mother's bloodline, and strolled through the banquet hall on Alex's arm.
My three childhood friends, the ones who had once sworn they would protect me forever, were busy shielding her from toasts, making sure no one pressed her to drink too much.
Alex cut through the crowd and walked toward me.
He stopped in front of me. “This tiara is Letitia's way of holding her ground in this world. You're already the Henson heiress. You don't need one piece of jewelry.”
“It's just an old trinket. Be generous about it.”
“If this old trinket had ended up in a stranger's hands tonight,” I looked at him, “how would Grandpa see me? The Henson heir who couldn't even hold on to her own mother's keepsake?”
Alex's brows knotted together.
“It's always about leverage with you. Beyond inheritance and shares, is there anything else in that head of yours?”
When I said nothing, his voice dropped lower. “Jocelyn, you're ruthless. You'd survive just fine without the Henson name. But Letitia can't.”
“If I hadn't given her the tiara tonight, the family elders would've written her off for good. She'd be thrown out.”
I stared down at the tips of my shoes.
He had no idea that the fight for the Henson inheritance had already entered its final stage.
My father's hints had been clear enough.
Either I passed tonight's test and proved I had absolute composure.
Or he would marry me off to the notorious second son of the Lee family in exchange for a capital injection from the Hardings.
I had wanted to gamble on three years of feelings.
But this bidding war had shattered every last illusion.
Letitia gathered her skirt and hurried over, pressing herself against Alex's side.
“Alex, I want to go say hello to your parents over there.”
“I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing. Could you teach me, Josie?”
She turned to me, her eyes wide with innocence. “I know you keep lists on every executive at your desk, their favorite brands of cigars, what they drink, what time they smoke. You have it all memorized down to the last detail.”
She paused, pressing her fingers to her lips as if she'd said too much.
“I'm not saying you're scheming……I just think it must be so exhausting for you.”
The expressions on the nearby socialites' faces shifted.
“She tracks every little detail like that? The Henson heiress has quite the calculating mind.”
“Well, what do you expect from someone raised on the outside? You can practically smell the hustle on her.”
The whispers fell on me like snow.
That list was an assignment from Grandpa. He told me to memorize the habits of every elder in Harbor City for the sake of the Henson family's legacy.
Alex had praised me for being thorough back then.
But now he looked at me with nothing but contempt. He didn't say a single word in my defense.
Letitia tugged on Alex's sleeve. “Did I say something wrong again? I'm so clumsy with words, not like Josie, who always knows how to charm people……”
Alex smoothed her hair. “It's fine. Your sister has plenty of tricks up her sleeve. She won't hold something this small against you.”
He led Letitia toward the center of the crowd.
My name drowned beneath the scorn around me.
I stood there, rooted in place, as if I had been pulled back three years.
The winter night I first arrived at the Henson manor.
I was the family's only true blood, yet I had stood outside like a beggar, waiting for those gates to open.
I met Alex on that snowy night.
He draped his coat over my shoulders and said：“Jocelyn, from now on, I've got your back.”
Now he had someone else's back.
I set down my glass and pushed open the heavy wooden doors to the terrace.
Cold air hit my face. I breathed it in, deep.
Grandpa would be back from the Capital in three days.
