Dolly, leaning heavily against Kadyn's side, walked slowly back into the center of the ballroom. She held a microphone handed to her by the event coordinator. She looked out at the crowd, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

"I want to apologize to everyone," Dolly said, her voice trembling perfectly. "What just happened was a terrible misunderstanding. Please, don't let my clumsiness ruin this beautiful night. Enjoy yourselves."

The crowd immediately erupted into polite applause and murmurs of sympathy. Her fake grace made the woman standing alone by the bar look even more like a bitter, unreasonable villain.

After handing the microphone back, Dolly didn't return to the lounge to rest. Instead, she grabbed Kadyn's hand and walked purposefully toward the bar, aiming straight for Dorene.

Vivian saw them coming. She grabbed Dorene's wrist, muttered a vicious curse under her breath, and squared her shoulders, ready for war.

Dolly stopped in front of them. She looked at Dorene with sickeningly sweet pity. "Dorene, I know you're hurting. I don't blame you for what you did. I still consider you my best friend."

Dorene stared at her, her face completely expressionless. She didn't even blink. She looked at Dolly as if she were looking at a stain on the floor.

When Dorene didn't react, Dolly turned her head toward the crowd and waved her hand. "Chuck? Could you come over here for a second?" she called out sweetly.

A man stepped out of the crowd. Chuck Vance. He was wearing a loud, patterned suit, his hair slicked back with too much gel. He was notorious in the New York social scene-a trust-fund playboy with a reputation for sleeping around and treating women like garbage.

Chuck swaggered over, holding a glass of scotch. His greasy eyes immediately locked onto Dorene's bare back and the tight fit of her red dress, roaming over her body with zero respect.

Dolly smiled and looped her arm through Chuck's. She turned back to Dorene. "Dorene, Chuck has always admired you. I think you two would be a perfect match. Maybe a new romance is exactly what you need to move on from... the past."

A few people standing nearby let out muffled snickers.

It was the ultimate insult. Offering a proud, high-society heiress to the biggest scumbag in the room was a public execution of her dignity.

Kadyn frowned. He shifted his weight, clearly uncomfortable with the setup. But he glanced down at Dolly's "weak" posture and decided to keep his mouth shut.

Chuck whistled lowly. He took a step forward, reaching out a hand covered in tacky gold rings, aiming straight for Dorene's cheek. "She's right, babe. Let me show you a good time."

Before his greasy fingers could even graze Dorene's skin, Vivian snapped.

Vivian swung her heavy, studded Hermès Birkin bag like a baseball bat. The heavy metal hardware of the bag cut through the air and smashed violently into the back of Chuck's outstretched hand.

Smack!

Chuck let out a high-pitched scream of agony. He stumbled backward, clutching his rapidly swelling hand to his chest, his face twisting in pain.

The entire ballroom went dead silent. Everyone stared in shock at the sudden burst of physical violence.

Vivian stood in front of Dorene like a furious war god. She pointed a shaking finger right at Chuck's face. "Keep your filthy hands off her! A pig digging through the trash doesn't get to touch a swan!"

Chuck's face turned bright red with humiliation and rage. He raised his uninjured hand, stepping forward as if to strike Vivian. But Vivian didn't flinch. She raised the heavy bag again, her eyes burning with such psychotic fury that Chuck froze in his tracks.

Dolly let out a terrified shriek and hid behind Kadyn's back. "Vivian! Are you crazy? How can you hit someone at our engagement party? !" she cried out.

Vivian whipped her head around, locking her crosshairs on Dolly. She let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Are you playing blind, you little bitch? You drag a dog in heat over here to humiliate her, and you expect me not to beat the dog?"

The crude, brutal words ripped right through Dolly's "matchmaker" facade. Dolly's face turned a sickly shade of green.

Kadyn couldn't take it anymore. He stepped forward, shielding Dolly. "Shut your mouth, Vivian!" he barked. "Stop causing a scene, or I will have security throw you out onto the street!"

Vivian stepped right up to Kadyn, tilting her head back to glare into his eyes. "Who the hell do you think you are? You're just a pathetic idiot being played by a cheap manipulator. Don't you dare bark at me."

Being called an idiot in front of the entire New York elite made the veins in Kadyn's forehead bulge. He raised his arm, his temper completely overriding his manners.

Just as the situation was about to turn into a physical brawl, Dorene finally moved.

She reached out, grabbed the back of Vivian's dress, and yanked her friend firmly behind her. Dorene stepped forward, putting herself directly in the line of fire, standing toe-to-toe with Kadyn.

Dorene's eyes were as cold as a Siberian winter. She didn't look at Dolly. She didn't look at the whimpering Chuck. She locked her gaze entirely on Kadyn.

She took one more step forward, her overwhelming presence forcing Kadyn to instinctively step back.

The silence in the room was deafening. Dorene was ready to ask the man she once loved the final question.

Dorene stood less than two feet away from Kadyn. The physical distance was close, but the emotional chasm between them was infinite. She could clearly see the messy swirl of anger, embarrassment, and a cowardly urge to look away flashing in his eyes.

The surrounding guests held their breath. Even Chuck stopped groaning and clamped his mouth shut. The air in the ballroom felt thick, heavy, and suffocating.

Dorene completely ignored the trembling woman hiding behind Kadyn's back. Her perfectly lined eyes stayed locked onto Kadyn's face. Her voice was terrifyingly calm, devoid of any tremor or heat.

She tilted her chin up just a fraction. "Kadyn. I am only going to ask you one question. Look me in the eye and answer it."

Kadyn's instinct was to look at the floor, but the sheer, crushing weight of her stare pinned him in place. He was forced to meet her dead, icy eyes.

Dorene slowly raised her hand and pointed a single finger at Chuck, who was cowering a few feet away. Her voice carried a faint, heartbreaking trace of desperation. "Do you honestly believe I belong with a piece of trash like him?"

The question hit Kadyn like a sledgehammer to the ribs. He knew exactly what Chuck Vance was. He knew that associating Dorene's name with a man like that was the ultimate degradation.

Kadyn opened his mouth. His conscience screamed at him to say no, to defend the woman who had stood by him for seven years. But right before the word left his throat, he felt a soft, desperate tug on the back of his suit jacket.

Dolly let out a microscopic, pathetic sniffle. "Kadyn," she whispered, her voice barely audible but perfectly timed. "I just wanted her to find someone so she stops trying to ruin us..."

That single, venomous whisper triggered the hero complex hardwired into Kadyn's brain. He remembered Dolly bleeding on the floor just minutes ago. He remembered he had to protect his fragile, pregnant fiancée from this aggressive woman standing in front of him.

To prove his loyalty to Dolly, Kadyn crushed his guilt. His eyes hardened into cold stones.

He looked Dorene straight in the face and delivered the killing blow. "Dolly is just trying to help. Since he likes you, why don't you give him a chance? Give it a shot."

Give it a shot.

Those four words were like a rusty, serrated blade plunging directly into Dorene's heart and twisting violently.

Dorene's pupils contracted to pinpricks. The ambient noise of the ballroom vanished entirely. All she could see was Kadyn's cold, indifferent face magnifying in her vision.

She had imagined a hundred different ways they might finally end. She never imagined he would personally hand her over to a predator just to score points with his new lover.

Behind her, Vivian gasped loudly. "You are a sick, twisted bastard," Vivian hissed, stepping forward to slap him.

But Dorene stood frozen like a marble statue. She bit down on her lower lip so hard the metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. She forced her tear ducts to stay dry. She would not bleed for him. Not here.

She stared at Kadyn for ten agonizing seconds, burning the image of his pathetic, cowardly face into her brain so she would never, ever forget it.

And then, Dorene laughed.

It wasn't a hysterical laugh. It was a bright, stunningly beautiful smile that dripped with absolute, crushing mockery and profound sorrow.

The smile sent a violent shiver down Kadyn's spine. He instinctively took a half-step back. The woman standing in front of him suddenly felt like a complete stranger, someone entirely out of his league.

Dorene let the smile drop. The last flickering ember of warmth in her eyes died completely, leaving behind a barren, scorched wasteland.

She nodded slowly. Her voice was as light as a feather, but every word was a lethal injection. "Okay. Good. Kadyn Paul, you really showed me what true garbage looks like today."

She didn't just insult Chuck. She took Kadyn and Dolly's dignity and ground it into the marble floor with her stiletto.

Kadyn's face turned a sickly shade of gray. He opened his mouth to shout back, but he found his throat completely paralyzed. Standing in front of the woman he had just mentally destroyed, he couldn't form a single word.

Dolly tried to salvage the moment. She stepped out from behind Kadyn, her eyes wide. "Dorene, please-"

Dorene shot her a look so violently cold that Dolly physically recoiled, snapping her mouth shut.

Dorene didn't waste another breath on them. She turned around gracefully, facing Vivian. She reached out and gently adjusted the collar of Vivian's dress, which had gotten twisted during the fight. Her demeanor returned to the flawless, untouchable elegance of a true heiress.

"Let's go, Vivian," Dorene said calmly. "The air in here is toxic. It's making me sick."

Without looking back at the crowd, the groom, or the bride, Dorene straightened her spine. She looked like a queen leaving a conquered territory, not a woman who had just lost everything.

She walked toward the grand exit, her heels clicking sharply against the floor, leaving Kadyn staring at her retreating back.