Everyone in that ballroom believed Liam was a quiet insurance consultant who’d inherited just enough money to rent the venue.

They also believed I was a desperate woman lucky to find any man willing to marry her.

Beatrice believed both lies more than anyone.

She’d raised me after my mother died, but kindness had never been part of the deal. She treated me like unpaid help, took credit for my scholarships, and later used my name to secure loans for her failing event company. When I found the forged signatures, she cried, apologized, and promised to pay it all back.

Then the fire happened.

After that, she assumed I was too broken to fight.

At dinner, Chloe raised her champagne glass. “To Liam,” she said, grinning. “A brave man. Some people marry for beauty. Others settle for personality.”

Laughter rippled through the room again.

Liam’s mother went rigid. His best man stared down at the table.

I touched Liam’s wrist. “Not yet.”

Beatrice took my restraint for weakness. She stood, smoothed her jeweled gown, and announced, “We all worried Audrey would never have this day. Given her condition, Liam deserves our gratitude.”

“My condition?” I asked.

She glanced at my face. “Must we say it out loud?”

The room went silent.

Liam reached for the microphone, but one look from me stopped him.

Beatrice had come here to humiliate me.