Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Chloe’s POV
On the screen, after Mom said those words, the banquet hall fell into another brief silence.
I sat on the mat, hugged my knees, buried my face in them for a moment, then looked up again.
I heard the thirty million. I knew what it meant to Mom—not the amount itself, but what it meant for a father to measure his daughter that way.
Beside me, Zoe had not spoken once.
I turned and glanced at her.
Her eyes were still fixed on the screen, but what was in them had changed. It was no longer the admiration she had shown while watching Mom work earlier. It was something heavy, as if pressed down by something, an expression too complicated to name.
“Chloe,” she said softly, “Mom must be really sad, right?”
I didn’t answer right away.
“She would never let anyone see it,” I said. “She never does.”
Zoe seemed to take that in, then lowered her gaze back to the screen and said nothing more.
On the screen, Mom stood there with her usual calm, the kind that showed nothing.
But I knew her. I knew how she must have felt when those words—“Thirty million should be enough to sever our father-daughter relationship completely”—came out of her mouth.
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Clara’s POV
“Not thirty million. Three hundred million.” Arthur arched a brow at me.
The banquet hall went quiet for a moment, the kind of quiet that came when everyone needed time to process the number in their minds. These were all elites of Maplewood City’s business world, people who talked about projects worth hundreds of millions as a matter of course. But hearing that number come from a father’s mouth, directed at his own daughter—it was entirely different from any business negotiation.
Arthur completely ignored everyone’s reaction. He dragged over a chair, sat down right in the middle of the banquet hall, and tilted his head back, openly putting on the face of a thug.
I neither moved nor let my expression change.
“Mr. Bennett, you truly are outrageously bold. Three hundred million?” I said calmly. “Why don’t you ask around Eldermist and see what father would ever demand three hundred million in old-age support from his own daughter?”
He didn’t care in the slightest. “What anyone else does has nothing to do with me. In my case, you will give me three hundred million—not a cent less.”
“I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Aren’t you working for Gloria Nguyen’s medical team now? One surgery brings in tens of millions. Getting three hundred million should be nothing to you.” He paused, and what came out of his mouth next made it perfectly clear to me that this man before me had discarded every last pretense. “Whether you steal it, rob it, or sell yourself, that’s your business.”
“But I’m telling you now—if you don’t give me this support money today, I won’t make things easy for you.”
The whispers in the banquet hall stopped.
It wasn’t silence. It was that stunned blankness that came after being hit with a sentence so vile people forgot even how to react. Everyone present had seen brutal things in business, but for a father to say the words “sell yourself” to his own daughter in front of so many people—this was no longer about money. It crossed a basic line of humanity.
I could feel the atmosphere around me change. The disgust was real, not polite or restrained.
Jasper stepped half a pace forward from my side. “Miss Clara, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have allowed him in without your consent. I’ll have him escorted out immediately.”
I gave a faint bitter smile and turned to look at him. “It’s all right, Mr. Cole. Don’t worry. I’ll handle this.”
I turned and walked toward Arthur. Leaning down by his ear, I lowered my voice so only he could hear.
“Three hundred million? I have it—but I won’t give it to you. If you come ask me again when you’re in hell, though, I might be happy to.”
I knew exactly how to provoke him. The moment those words reached his ear, I saw his face change sharply.
He raised his hand, fast.
This time Jasper intervened. He grabbed Arthur’s arm firmly and said sharply, “Mr. Bennett, this is a banquet hosted by the Cole family. You’ve already resorted to violence more than once at our event. Are you trying to smash up our party? Do you really think you can bear the consequences of retaliation from the Cole family?”
Arthur visibly became uneasy. Given the Bennett family’s current situation, any one of the business leaders present could easily crush him.
Jasper motioned to security. Two strong young men stepped forward.
“Please escort Mr. Bennett out.”
The guards seized Arthur by both arms and dragged him toward the exit. Halfway there, he still shouted back unwillingly, “Clara, this isn’t over!”
I smiled with contempt and didn’t take those words to heart.
After Arthur was gone, several ladies came over and tried to comfort me all at once. I stood there, my expression steady, not letting anyone see what was happening in that place inside me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced toward the other side of the room—Kael was standing with Jasper and Mr. Henderson, the three of them talking about something. I couldn’t hear what they were sa