"Ethan Clark is your cousin's boyfriend! How can you announce your engagement to him like this?"
The accusation rang through the ballroom and for a moment everything seemed to go quiet. Then, the whispers exploded.
"Chairwoman Grant doing something like this is so expected. She is so used to snatching projects that she thinks it is okay to steal boyfriend's too?"
"So it was true?"
"I can't believe it."
"What was she thinking?"
With her ears still ringing from the slap, Vanessa stood frozen for a moment.
The sting on her cheek remained, but it was nothing compared to the familiar ache spreading through her chest. Margaret Grant had always favoured Lynette. She had always known that. But this slap. She had hoped that her grandmother would only be a spectator at most. Not the voice that Lynette used to bury her.
"Have we raised you to become this shameless?"
Vanessa looked into her grandmother's eyes then and gave a cold smile. Then, ignoring the woman, she moved.
***
