Chapter 2
The large screen flickered, and an image appeared, sending the entire hall into instant chaos.
This was no romantic highlight reel. What filled the screen was a dingy, low-rent motel room.
The footage was grainy and shaky, a recording from a hidden camera.
On screen, I was disheveled, my gaze hazy, clinging to Chase.
But what truly shattered me was the sound.
Amplified to a deafening volume were ragged breaths and my voice, thick with wanton desire.
"Chase, I love you. God, I love you so much."
"Take me with you, please? I'd follow you anywhere, even to hell."
"I don't want to be Serena Shaw anymore. I just want to be your woman."
The room erupted.
The guests who had been singing my praises moments before now stared at me with a mixture of shock and contempt.
"Turn it off! Shut it off!" Henry lunged for the power cord, but his hands trembled too violently to pull the plug from the socket.
Finally, the video stopped.
I stood frozen in place, my blood running cold.
I looked at Chase, searching his face for any sign that this was a cruel joke.
But there was none.
He stood there, his eyes fixed on me with a vacant, glacial stare. All trace of the warmth they had once held was gone, replaced only by the cold satisfaction of revenge.
Suddenly, a slap landed on my face.
The blow whipped my head to the side, my ears ringing.
Henry trembled with rage, jabbing a finger in my face. "You shameless disgrace! You've reduced my life's work to ashes, you rotten, disgusting piece of trash!"
I clutched my stinging cheek, eyes fixed on Chase as I ignored Henry, my voice trembling. "Why? You promised you'd take me away."
Chase let out a cold, derisive snort.
He pulled a handful of items from his pocket and held them up: five or six condoms and a few crumpled bills.
"Take you away?" he repeated, his voice dripping with contempt.
He took a step closer. Then, before all the guests, he flung them squarely into my face.
Condoms and bills were scattered across the floor.
"Did you actually believe I loved you, Serena?" Chase asked, the question slicing through the stunned silence.
He leaned down, his face close to mine.
"The very thought that you share Henry Shaw's blood disgusts me," he hissed, each word a razor cut. "Every time I touched you, I fought back the urge to vomit."
A cold, mocking smile touched his lips. "You weren't bad in bed. That's your twenty dollars for services rendered this past month. Don't expect a penny more. That's all a cheap slut who throws herself at men is worth."
He straightened up, his gaze sweeping over the stunned guests. "Still interested in second-hand goods, Mr. Chamberlain?" he called out. "You might want to watch what you catch."
"Chase!" I screamed, lunging to grab his sleeve, desperate for him to tell me this was all a nightmare.
But he merely shook me off.
"Get your filthy hands off me," he snarled. "You'll soil my clothes."
He turned and walked away.
Behind me, Henry roared about cutting me off, the Chamberlain family publicly renounced the engagement, and the relentless flash of paparazzi cameras stripped me bare before the world.
That day, I fell from being the prized princess of the Shaw family to becoming the most wretched joke in Meridian.
I stared at the direction where Chase had disappeared.
So this was his revenge.
He had hammered my devotion into a blade and plunged it deep into my father's heart.
As the blade found its mark, I shattered into pieces, too.