Chapter 3 - THE GRAND ASTER
The Grand Aster ballroom glittered like a room built to deny consequences.
Crystal chandeliers. White orchids. Champagne nobody tasted carefully enough to know the price.
Julian arrived with Genevieve on his arm.
He looked furious beneath the smile he wore for cameras.
I entered through the west doors holding Maya's hand.
No one recognized me at first.
That was useful.
Then the orchestra stopped.
Not because of me.
Because Gideon Blackwood had entered.
At seventy-one, my father was still the wealthiest man in the room and the only one who seemed bored by that fact.
He had not seen me in six years.
His eyes found mine immediately.
He took one step.
Maya broke free from my hand.
"Maya—"
She ran across the ballroom.
Guests moved aside.
She threw herself into Gideon's arms as if some part of her had always known where she belonged.
My father froze.
Then slowly bent and held her.
Maya buried her face in his jacket.
"Grandpa..."
The room went dead silent.
Julian turned white.
Genevieve stopped breathing.
Maya lifted one shaking finger and pointed across the room.
"She's the lady who hurt me."
Gideon looked at Genevieve.
Then at the bruise on Maya's cheek.
He did not shout.
That was never my father's way.
"Who touched my granddaughter?"
Julian rushed forward. "Mr. Blackwood, this is a misunderstanding."
Gideon looked at him as if seeing an insect on glass.
"You married my daughter and never learned who her father was?"
The whispers began.
Julian looked at me.
"Eleanor?"
I stepped beside Maya.
"Eleanor Blackwood."
Genevieve laughed nervously. "This is some stunt."
Harrison entered with two attorneys and the clinic report.
Then every phone in Julian's executive group started vibrating.
His CFO opened one message and went pale.
"Julian... the bridge facility was called."
Another executive whispered, "So was Mercer Bank."
Julian stared at me.
"You can't do this."
"I already did."
Then Harrison leaned close to me.
"There's another problem."
"What?"
He showed me a custody petition filed forty minutes earlier.
May you like
Julian was asking the court to declare me mentally unstable.
Attached was a psychiatric evaluation I had never received.
