Chapter 5 - The Confrontation
The ballroom dissolved into a sea of hushed, excited whispers. Photographers’ flashes went off like lightning strikes, capturing the shocking spectacle.
Ethan pushed through the crowd of aristocrats, his face red with a mixture of embarrassment, confusion, and rising fury. He stomped up to the velvet rope separating the VIP lounge where Alexander and Claire stood.
"Claire!" Ethan roared, his voice cracking. "What the hell is the meaning of this?!"
Claire didn't flinch. She turned slowly, her posture regal and completely unbothered. She looked at the man she had loved for five years, but felt nothing—no fear, no sadness, only a cold, distant pity.
"Hello, Ethan," Claire said calmly, taking a sip of sparkling water from a crystal flute.
"Where have you been?!" Ethan yelled, ignoring the stares of the highest-ranking executives in the country. "You vanished! You didn't answer my calls! And whose children are those?!"
He lunged forward, trying to grab Claire’s arm to pull her away, but before his fingers could even graze her sleeve, a wall of iron blocked his path.
Alexander stepped between them, his towering frame casting a long shadow over Ethan. He reached out and grabbed Ethan’s wrist in a grip so powerful that Ethan’s knees nearly buckled.
"Touch her again," Alexander said in a dark, quiet voice that chilled the surrounding air, "and I will ensure you spend the rest of your life trying to afford a public defender."
Ethan winced, trying to pull his hand back, but Alexander’s grip was locked. "Vance?! What is this? Why are you with my wife?!"
"Ex-wife," Claire corrected firmly, stepping up beside Alexander. "You made sure of that when you forced me to sign the divorce papers in your lawyer’s office while I was in labor."
Murmurs of utter disgust erupted from the surrounding crowd. High-society ladies covered their mouths in horror, whispering to one another about Mercer’s cruelty.
Ethan’s face went white. "Claire, shut up! You’re humiliating me!"
"You humiliated yourself the day you threw her out onto the street, Mercer," Alexander said, finally releasing Ethan’s wrist with a dismissive shove. "You left her penniless, frozen out, expecting her to crawl into a corner and die. But you failed to realize one crucial thing."
"What?!" Ethan spat, adjusting his crumpled cuff.
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Alexander looked down at the three strollers, then lifted little Leo into his arms, holding the baby against his chest with natural, protective grace. He looked back at Ethan with a dark, triumphant smile.
"You threw away gold, thinking you were saving brass," Alexander said softly. "These children are mine now. She is mine now. And everything you thought you owned... is about to belong to Vance Enterprises."
