Chapter 24: The Fury of a Woman Scorned
The penthouse bar at the Intercontinental was filled with the soft clinking of crystal and the hushed tones of the Lagos elite, but the atmosphere at Sandra's table was anything but serene. She sat surrounded by her inner circle—three women who wore their fathers' wealth like armor and traded gossip like currency. Sandra's face, usually a mask of rehearsed perfection, was flushed with a humiliated rage that even the most expensive foundation couldn't hide.
"He stood there," Sandra hissed, her fingers gripping her champagne flute so hard the glass threatened to shatter. "In front of my father. In front of the Chief Sterling. He called me a child. He said I was an embarrassment." Her friends gasped in a synchronized chorus of manufactured shock. They had all chased Liam Sterling at some point; he was the ultimate prize, the "Great White Whale" of the marriage market. To hear that he had not only rejected Sandra but had done so with such clinical brutality was the scandal of the season.
"What are you going to do, San?" one of them whispered, leaning in. "Your father must be livid. The merger is stalled because of his ego." Sandra took a long, shaky sip of her drink, her eyes narrowing into predatory slits. "My father wants the merger. His father wants an heir. Liam thinks he's untouchable because he's the 'Iceman.' He thinks he can just discard me like a broken phone." She set the glass down with a definitive clack. "He's wrong. Men like Liam don't respond to tears; they respond to persistence. He needs to see that I'm the only woman who can match his stature. I'm going to make him apologize, and then I'm going to make him mine."