Now I understood—Oliver hadn’t simply favored Beatrice. He was preparing to dispose of me. To erase me completely from his life.
And he was going to marry her… while I still carried his name.
The room spun around me. My knees weakened, but I held onto the cabinet to steady myself. All these years, all the humiliation, all the silence I endured… and this was why. This was what I had been discarded for.
I didn’t realize Coreen was watching me until she yanked at my wrist. “Evil! Evil!” she screamed, tugging at the bracelet I wore—my mother’s bracelet, the only thing left of her.
“Stop it!” I snapped, my voice breaking as I slapped her tiny hand away.
Her cry rang through the house like an alarm.
In seconds, Jackson stormed into the room, his face red with rage. “What the hell, Mom?!”
“I didn’t—” I started, but before I could finish, his hand collided with my cheek. The sting spread across my skin, searing, humiliating.
“You hurt my daughter again?” His voice dripped with venom. “I regret you being my mother. It should have been Aunt Beatrice instead.”
Tears blurred my vision, but they couldn’t blur the image of my own son, my flesh and blood, looking at me with hatred.