My blood turned to ice the moment Ethan’s father, Thomas Prescott, leaned back in his leather dining chair and sneered, “Street garbage in a borrowed dress.” His voice sliced through the silence like a cold blade, each syllable echoing across the chandelier-lit dining room of the Prescott estate. Twenty-three guests—politicians, philanthropists, CEOs—sat frozen, their forks suspended mid-air, eyes bouncing between him and me like spectators awaiting a public execution.
Thomas’s cruel stare locked with mine, deliberately slow, deliberately degrading. He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t emotional. He was enjoying this—my humiliation—like a show he’d paid for.
My heart pounded, pulsing through my fingertips. I was used to being underestimated; I’d climbed too many sharp cliffs to be shaken by words. But this—being insulted in front of Ethan, in front of a room full of the elite—hit something deeper. Not shame, not fear. A cold clarity. A rising resolve that made the edges of my vision sharpen.
Ethan reached under the table and squeezed my hand, his thumb trembling. “Ava… just ignore him,” he whispered, voice cracking. “Please.”
But I wasn’t going to ignore anything.
I folded my napkin—linen so soft it barely felt real—and set it neatly beside my untouched plate. The salmon probably cost more than my monthly grocery bill when I was nineteen. I rose slowly.
Twenty-three guests inhaled.
Thomas smirked, certain he’d won. He expected me to break, cry, flee. He thought I was what he said: small, weak, disposable.
He had no idea who he’d just provoked.
“Thank you for dinner,” I said, my voice calm, even. “And thank you for finally being honest.”
A ripple went through the room. Thomas blinked, surprised I wasn’t collapsing.
“My name isn’t ‘street garbage.’ My name is Ava Blake. I’m thirty-one. And I built my life from scratch. No inheritance. No favors. No shortcuts.”
His jaw tightened.
I continued, “Everything I have, I earned. Can you say the same?”
Gasps. A dropped fork.
Ethan stood up abruptly. “Dad, stop this—”
“Sit down,” Thomas commanded, face flushing red. “This woman will not—”