My classmates exchanged uneasy glances—some wanted to speak up, but one look from Inez’s piercing, furious gaze made them shrink back in silence.
Then, she turned her fire on me.
Her eyes blazed with hatred as she stepped closer.
“Lindsay, you really are something else,” she spat. “Back in high school, you were already flirting with every guy in sight. And now? You're still seducing my fiancé.”
She scoffed, voice rising with rage.
“He was supposed to accompany me to this reunion, but suddenly said he had something ‘urgent’ to handle. I never imagined that ‘urgent’ thing was sending you, you shameless vixen.”
“Inez,” I said through clenched teeth, suppressing the pain searing through my body, “you’ve misunderstood. There’s nothing going on between me and Patrick.”
I lifted my head and met her gaze.
“If you don’t believe me, then call him. Ask him yourself.”
Earlier today, I had planned to keep a low profile and ride with Uncle Ken. But Patrick insisted on driving me—especially after learning I was attending a reunion. “Maybe my girlfriend’s your classmate,” he said with a smirk.
I didn’t expect his words to be so accurate.
Because yes—his girlfriend is my high school classmate.
Worse… she’s my old nemesis.
Inez was the reigning school beauty back then. But when I transferred in during our second year, I unwittingly dethroned her. From the moment I arrived, she had it out for me. A senior she’d been pining for confessed to me in public—and though I turned him down kindly, that moment sealed her hatred.
She even tried to rally others to bully me, though none of her schemes succeeded.
“Call him?” Inez snorted in contempt. “What, so your lover can come running to save you? Dream on, slut. You think he’d turn against me, his fiancée, for someone like you? I’ll call him—but only after I’m done with you!”
“Inez, you should really call him now and clear this up,” the class monitor said urgently. “Assaulting someone is a crime.”
But Inez’s lackeys shoved him aside.
“Crime?” one of them sneered. “Our boss is the law around here. Do you nobodies even know who her fiancé is?”
“You’ll wet your pants when you hear it,” another chimed in with a smirk.
“She’s marrying into the Patton Family of Chicago next month. You dare mess with the future young madam of the Patton household? Do you even want to live in Chicago?”
The moment they mentioned the Patton Family, fear swept across the room. My classmates backed away, their faces pale, avoiding my eyes.
Even the class monitor froze, his stance crumbling under pressure. One of the thugs casually shoved him aside, and no one dared stop it.
In Chicago, the Patton Family was practically untouchable—for ordinary people, at least. Most only knew Inez was about to marry into wealth, but not that she was set to marry into the Patton family itself. To them, she had hit the ultimate jackpot.
Some of my classmates even looked tempted to cozy up to her.
But what they didn’t know—what none of them knew—was this:
The Patton Family only rose to power because of my family.
If it weren’t for our support, they’d still be buried in a forgotten corner of our hometown, living in obscurity.
