Chapter 9 A Ravishing Entrance

Hearing her own name nervously gasped into the crisp evening air, Rowena slowly turned her head. Her steady gaze locked with Bianca’s pale face. Despite the obvious shock radiating from the other woman, Rowena’s flawless makeup masked any reaction. Her beautiful features remained a blank slate, devoid of any emotional tell. Ever since Kingston demanded she apologize to Bianca back at the mansion earlier that day, a heavy switch had permanently flipped in her chest. She was done. The imposing man standing a few feet away was nobody to her now. He was just her legally discarded ex-husband.

A polite, detached smile grazed Rowena's ruby lips. Without missing a beat, she hooked her slender arm securely around Pierce’s muscular bicep and resumed her confident stride down the red carpet.

A few paces away, Kingston stood paralyzed. His dark eyes fixed on her approaching figure, swirling with profound bewilderment, intense possessiveness, and a bitter trace of guilt over the day's disastrous events. He stared in breath-stealing disbelief at her stunning makeover. Seeing her walk arm-in-arm with another powerful man mere hours after their official divorce papers were stamped twisted a massive knot in his stomach. He had to painfully admit the truth. His discarded wife of three years looked ravishing, to the point his heart skipped a heavy beat.

But that brief moment of awe morphed into cold, brewing fury. His mind raced with toxic paranoia. Was Pierce her new, hidden man? They just divorced this morning. What was with this lightning-fast speed of moving on? Kingston glared, his body tense as a coiled spring. He waited silently for her to stop and offer a submissive explanation as she gracefully approached his position.

Yet, right as Rowena and Pierce stepped within mere inches of him, they fluidly pivoted. They paid zero attention to him or the trembling Bianca. Instead, Pierce and Rowena exchanged warm pleasantries with the nearby CEO of Vesper, treating Kingston like invisible air.

Kingston’s handsome expression darkened into a storm cloud of rage. Sensing the extreme danger rolling off the man beside her, Bianca quickly swallowed down her carefully prepared provocations.

Just at that tense moment, Kingston’s notoriously quick-tempered younger sister, Daphne Thorne, hurried over from the lavish interior hall. Spotting the lifelong target of her bullying looking like a glowing goddess, Daphne roughly nudged Bianca’s shoulder.

"Bianca," Daphne hissed, her voice tight with fury. "How on earth did that lowly b*tch sneak her way into an exclusive event like this?"

Bianca’s eyes lit up with manipulative glee. She leaned in closer, eager to plant a poisonous seed.

"Do you know about this, Daphne?" Bianca whispered venomously. "Rowena and King finalized their divorce this morning. Who would have thought she could find another powerful man to back her financially so quickly? She has my full blessings, though."

The manipulation worked without a hitch.

"Blessings my foot!" Daphne scowled. Her face twisted into an ugly mask as she shot a resentful, murderous glare at Rowena's back. "I can't believe she got a man to bring her here right after signing those legal papers. That b*tch must have been cheating behind our backs before she even got the divorce from my brother. How dare she cuckold Kingston? I am going to personally skin her alive!"

With a sneaky, satisfied smile playing on her lips, Bianca theatrically feigned a weak, pathetic attempt to stop the furious sister. Daphne shrugged her off and stormed straight toward the Vesper CEO's circle.

"Sir!" Daphne cried out rudely, aggressively interrupting the high-level conversation.

Pierce slowly turned his tall frame around. His chilling aura was on full display. Daphne instantly froze in her tracks, momentarily stunned into silence. She could not fathom that a man existed in Riverstone who could rival her own brother's god-like looks. But that sheer awe only made her deep-seated jealousy and boiling wrath toward Rowena's upgraded status reach an explosive peak.

Looking down his nose, Pierce shot her an indifferent, icy glare. "You are?"

Rowena deliberately leaned her face close to Pierce’s ear. She spoke in a voice intentionally loud enough for the seething Daphne to hear every single humiliating word.

"She used to be my sister-in-law," Rowena explained casually. "She is undeniably the most conceited, poorly behaved person in the Thorne family."

Pierce's already cold expression turned icier. His jaw set defensively.

Fueled by the openly intimate, whispering interaction between the two, Daphne lost her mind. She hastily schooled her furious features, maliciously pretending to offer Pierce kindly, upper-class advice to save him from a scam.

"Sir, don't be fooled by the woman on your arm!" Daphne shouted aggressively. "She was married before! She is no real socialite. She is just a pathetic, lying gold-digger who grew up in a filthy orphanage. She is a scheming woman who even used to be in a disgusting relationship with my own grandpa. She—"

*Smack!*

A sharp, horrific shriek echoed through the hall, instantly followed by the crisp, ringing sound of a brutal, full-force physical slap. The entire surrounding area of the banquet hall plunged into a dead, terrified silence.

Holding her intensely stinging, rapidly reddening cheek, Daphne widened her tear-filled eyes in sheer disbelief. She stared directly at the woman she thought she could bully forever and stammered out.

"You hit me?"