I thrashed against the bodyguards, desperate to speak—but before a single syllable left my lips, Summer's palm cracked across my face.
The force sent me sprawling. My skull bounced off the marble. A metallic flood filled my mouth as blood welled from my split lip. The world spun in ink-black swirls, my brain struggling to reboot.
Paul Walker took a deliberate step back, nose wrinkling.
He clearly hadn't expected the woman Mr. Gilbert valued so highly to be this unhinged. This *brutal.*
Summer sneered down at me. "Useless parasite. It's bad enough you drag the whole family down—now you're trying to seduce Mr. Gilbert's people?"
Paul's gaze slid toward me. Contempt hardened his features.
Summer noticed the shift immediately. Her eyes welled with tears on command. Her posture crumpled into something fragile and pitiful.
"Assistant Walker, I'm so sorry you had to witness that." A delicate sniffle. "I've made a complete fool of myself."
She dabbed at her cheek. "I'm just so *angry.* This woman... she relied on my parents' sponsorship to latch onto our family like a leech. Used her poverty to manipulate their pity. Stole the love and care that should have been *mine.*"
Paul's jaw tightened.