It is not about the slap, he said as he pulled his arm away from her grasp. It is about the fact that you are a cruel person when you think you can get away with it.
My father tried to step in and tell Dominic that we should all calm down, but Dominic looked at him with total disgust. He realized that my father had also been part of the problem for all those years.
Tessa turned to me with tears running down her face and asked me to tell Dominic that everything was fine. For the first time in her life, she needed me to save her from the consequences of her own actions.
Please help me, she whispered while the entire ballroom waited for my response. I looked at her and realized that I did not feel any joy in seeing her suffer.
This has nothing to do with me, I said as I turned toward the exit. This is simply the life you chose to build for yourself.
I walked through the crowd and felt their eyes on me, but this time they were filled with a strange kind of reverence. I left the ballroom and stood on the terrace to breathe in the cool night air that smelled of wet grass.
My father followed me outside and tried to apologize by saying he had been weak and did not know how successful I had become. It was pathetic to hear him admit that he only cared about me now because of my bank account.
You were never what they said you were, he told me as he stood there looking like an old man who had lost everything. I did not answer him because there was nothing left to say to a man who had failed me when it mattered most.
Dominic came out a few minutes later and told me that he was officially calling off the wedding and ending the partnership with Tessa’s family. He told me that I was a formidable woman and that he was sorry for the pain I had endured.
I drove away from that estate and did not look back at the lights or the people who were still whispering inside. I was no longer the girl who was thrown out in the rain, and I no longer needed their love to feel whole.
THE END.
