Chapter 7 - The Unraveling of Chloe
While Dominic was being slapped with criminal contempt charges at the gates of the Sterling Estate, Chloe Vance—now officially Chloe Brooks, though she still refused to drop her maiden name—was having a complete and total psychological breakdown in the penthouse apartment her parents had rented for her in downtown Manhattan.
The wedding reception disaster had not just ruined her social standing; it had incinerated it.
Every society magazine, gossip blog, and wedding publication in the city had picked up the story. The viral video of Amanda stealing the ring, Eleanor tearing Vivienne's dress, and Arthur Sterling stepping in like an avenging angel had accumulated over ten million views on social media within forty-eight hours.
Chloe hurled a crystal champagne flute across the living room, watching it shatter into a thousand glittering pieces against the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"It's all her fault!" Chloe shrieked, her mascara running down her tear-stained cheeks as she paced frantically across the ruined room. "That little peasant stole my wedding! She stole my spotlight! She ruined my life!"
Her mother, Eleanor, sat rigidly on the velvet sofa, looking ten years older than she had at the wedding. The bags under her eyes were dark and heavy, and her hands shook continuously as she clutched a cup of cold chamomile tea.
"Stop screaming, Chloe," Eleanor muttered, her voice hollow and defeated. "Screaming isn't going to unfreeze our bank accounts. Screaming isn't going to stop the Attorney General from subpoenaing father's corporate tax records."
"Then do something!" Chloe screamed, spinning around to face her mother. "Call your lawyer! Call your friends in high society! Tell them the Sterlings are lying! Tell them Vivienne is a gold-digger who tricked her way into a billionaire family!"
"Nobody is answering our calls, Chloe!" Eleanor finally snapped, her voice rising in sharp, desperate hysteria. "Don't you understand?! Your father's firm is in receivership! Our townhouse is being seized by the bank! We are broke, Chloe! We are absolute nobodies, and nobody in this city will even look at us in the street!"
Chloe stopped dead in her tracks, her breath catching in her throat as the horrifying magnitude of their ruin finally penetrated her self-absorbed mind.
She walked slowly to the mirror hanging over the marble fireplace, staring at her own reflection in her designer wedding gown—the dress she had worn to humiliate a woman she considered inferior.
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Now, the dress was stained, the marriage was legally null and void, and the empire she thought she was marrying into had crushed her under its heel without breaking a sweat.
She let out a long, shuddering sob and slid slowly down the wall until she sat in a crumpled heap on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and shattered illusions.
