Chapter 145
Serena
The phone rang once. Just once.
Then it connected so fast it was almost like someone had been waiting for the call.
"Mmmmm... ahhhhh..."
The sound that came through wasn't words. It was vocalization. Distressed. Confused.
But it was Beatrice's voice. I'd recognize it anywhere.
My heart sank.
"Lady Beatrice?" I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "It's me. It's Serena Vance. Can you hear me?"
Felix moved forward smoothly and hit the speaker button on my phone before I could stop him.
"Let everyone hear," he said pleasantly. "So we can all judge who's telling the truth."
I wanted to throw the phone at his head. But the damage was done. The call was on speaker now, Beatrice's confused sounds filling the gallery.
"Yesss... yes... is it you?" The words were slurred. Uncertain. Like someone fighting through heavy sedation. "Vance... Miss Vance?"
"Yes," I said, relief flooding through me. At least she recognized my name. "Yes, it's me. Lady Beatrice, the painting—the one you consigned to me—this man is saying—"
"Painting?" Her voice sharpened with confusion. "What painting? I don't... I don't have any painting. Did I give you a painting?"
My stomach dropped.
"But you—" I forced myself to stay calm. "Your son is here. He's claiming you couldn't have authorized—"
"My son?" Beatrice cut me off, her voice rising into something close to hysteria. "Son? But I don't have a son! Do I have a son?"
No. No no no—
"I always wanted a son!" Her laugh cracked, too high, too manic. "Or was it daughters? I have daughters! So many beautiful daughters!"
The gallery was dead silent now. Everyone listening in horror.
"Serena!" Beatrice's voice turned sing-song. Childlike. "Do you want to be my daughter? You can have everything! Everything I have! Would you like that? Would you—"
I hit the end call button with a shaking hand.
The silence that followed was deafening.
Raymond's smile was vicious. Triumphant.
"Still think she's competent?" he asked sweetly. "Still think your contract is valid?"
He turned to address the room, playing to his audience like this was a goddamn performance.
"This woman—" he pointed at me, "—took advantage of my sick mother. Conned her while she was clearly suffering from a mental breakdown. Stole our family's painting by preying on someone who couldn't possibly consent to a sale."
The crowd's reaction was immediate and damning.
"She must have known—"
"To take advantage like that—"
"The poor woman sounds completely—"
"This is elder abuse—"
"Criminal fraud at minimum—"
Arthur was looking at me like he didn't know who I was. Like the woman he'd hugged five minutes ago had been replaced by a stranger.
My throat was closing up. My vision was narrowing. Everything I'd worked for—the exhibition, the sale, the restoration of my family's name—it was all crashing down around me.
I'd been so close. So impossibly close.
And Felix had destroyed it all with one phone call.
I looked at him without meaning to, and his expression made me want to scream. He wasn't even bothering to hide his satisfaction anymore. Just standing there with that slight smile, watching me drown.
My gaze drifted helplessly to Lance.
And I froze.
Because Lance wasn't panicking. Wasn't worried. Wasn't even concerned.
He was... smiling?
Not the polite, professional smile he used in business. Not the cold smirk he gave Felix when they were sparring.
This was something else. Something that looked almost like satisfaction. Like someone watching a plan come together exactly as intended.
What the hell—
"Who," a voice rang out from the gallery entrance, sharp and imperious and very, very familiar, "is spreading lies about me being in a psychiatric hospital?"
Every head in the room turned.
"Because if I were mentally ill—" the voice continued, dripping with aristocratic disdain, "—I would rather be DEAD than locked up in one of those dreadful institutions!"
And there, framed in the doorway like she owned the building—because knowing Beatrice, she probably had shares in it—was Lady Beatrice herself.
She was dressed impeccably. A Chanel suit in navy blue. Pearls that probably cost more than my car. Hair perfectly coiffed. Makeup flawless. She looked like she'd just stepped out of a society luncheon, not a psychiatric ward.
She looked seventy years old but moved like fifty. Alert. Sharp. Absolutely furious.
And standing beside her, wearing the most satisfied smile I'd ever seen on his usually professional face, was Vincent.
"Miss Vance," Vincent said, his voice warm with barely suppressed amusement. "It appears we've arrived at exactly the right moment."
The gallery erupted into chaos.
But all I could do was stare at Lance.
At the man who'd somehow—impossibly—orchestrated this entire rescue while I'd been fighting for my life.
His eyes met mine across the room, and the message in them was crystal clear:
Did you really think I'd let you fall?