Chapter 6
Before Luna could even react, someone grabbed her hand viciously. What met her was Leo's towering rage. "Luna, how did you become this vicious? I knew it. If you, the boss's wife, hadn't told him to do it, where would some host get the nerve to touch Ava? You've been harassed yourself, and now you'd let Ava suffer the same thing? Apologize to Ava!"
Being cursed at out of nowhere made Luna's head ring. It took her a while to come back to herself, and then she shook him off. "Told who to do what? I didn't do it. Why should I apologize for something I never did?" Leo had always smiled and indulged her. He had never once spoken harshly to her. But now, because of one sentence from another woman, he was yelling at her in front of everyone and crushing her dignity into the mud.
Tears spilled uselessly down her face, and Luna stubbornly wiped them away. "When I do something, I do it openly. Just like before, when I made her lose her job, I didn't hide it. If I didn't do it, I won't admit it!"
The air froze. No one dared say a word. Until Ava dropped to her knees with a thud. "I'm sorry, Ms. Quinn. I deserved to be taken advantage of. This had nothing to do with you... You can hit me or yell at me, just please don't fight with Leo anymore. He really has it hard... Leo's already sweating from anger. Let him change his clothes first..."
The moment Leo heard that, the tension all over him melted away. He pulled Ava to her feet, his dazed eyes full of emotion. "Ava, you've suffered so much. Why are you still thinking about me?" He tightened his grip on Ava's hand, then turned to Luna, disappointment filling his eyes. "Luna, you're right. You don't need to apologize. The one at fault is me. I spoiled you too much. That's why you've gotten more and more unreasonable. If you won't apologize, fine. That bastard's blood splashed on Ava. Wipe her shoes clean."
Luna felt like she'd just been struck by lightning. It took her a long time to find her voice. "You want me to wipe her shoes...?" Miss Quinn had always been the one others waited on. Since when had she ever been reduced to wiping someone else's shoes?
She turned to leave, but one of Leo's bodyguards kicked the back of her knee, and she crumpled to the ground with a cry. Her forehead slammed into the marble floor. Warm blood spread across the ground, and the pain made her suck in a sharp breath. Leo acted like he saw nothing. "Wipe Ava's shoes clean and this ends here. Be good."
"Leo!" Luna looked up at him, disbelief all over her face. "I didn't do it, so I didn't do it. Why won't you believe me? Just because you want to protect her, do you have to humiliate me too?" She got no answer. Instead, the bodyguard grabbed her hand and rubbed it back and forth over Ava's shoes.
Leo looked down at it all from above. "Easy. Don't hurt Mrs. Stone's hand." It didn't hurt much, but her pride shattered all over the floor, and tears blurred her vision.
The sneer at the corner of Ava's mouth was even harder to look at. "Luna, all you did was kneel and wipe Ava's shoes a couple of times. Ava was the one who got taken advantage of." Leo tried to help her up, but she shook him off hard. Clutching her bloodied forehead, she didn't start to recover until she made it back home.