The chiseled lines of his jaw, the commanding depths of those black eyes, unreadable and intimidating. Even the jade ring firmly wrapped around his thumb carried significance—it was marbled red, like embedded veins of blood, and seemed to embody everything about the man who wore it: cold, elegant, inscrutable, yet undeniably dangerous.

Matthew caught her lingering stare and hesitated, the motion of his fingers—turning the jade ring absentmindedly—suddenly still. Then, like an antidote to her unwavering scrutiny, a soft laugh sounded behind him. Slender hands, pale and delicate, reached forward to rest on his shoulder.

The hands belonged to Olivia.

Her face was flushed, rimmed by the telltale trace of tears, her features crumpled into practiced vulnerability. Even her unmistakable sadness seemed beautiful—an artful tragedy to inspire pity. She gazed up at him, red-rimmed eyes brimming with injured affection.

At last, everyone had arrived.

Frank glanced toward Matthew, lifting his tea to sip while his attention subtly shifted back to Scarlett, heavy with quiet menace.

"Enough," he barked, the impact rippling through the room. "What do you think this is, a marketplace for gossip? You've embarrassed the family enough already!"

His narrowed eyes fixed sharply on Scarlett as he uttered his next words, slow and deliberate.

"Scarlett, you’ve lived in this house long enough. The Hartman family has given you and your mother more than you deserve. Now that you’ve made a mistake, you should at least have the decency to admit to it."

That single sentence landed like a weight on her chest, suffocating. It was nearly identical to the speech he’d made in her past life—a thinly veiled threat that left no room for negotiation. Under its oppressive shadow, Emily broke down.

The woman rushed forward, grabbing her daughter’s arm and pleading through tears. "Scarlett, please! Just apologize to your grandfather. Once you do, everything will resolve itself. Don’t make this worse than it already is!"

Apologize?

Scarlett felt the corner of her lips twitch upward in bitter amusement.

Her mother might not have understood, but Scarlett did—this wasn’t to "resolve" anything at all.Frank wasn’t looking for repentance or redemption. He wanted her submission—a scapegoat to deflect the fury bubbling among the online masses. An apology meant condemning herself, tethering her struggling existence to the Hartman family’s reputation, serving as its indisputable shield against humiliation.

Straightening her posture, Scarlett did what she hadn't done in her prior life: she looked up and took control. Her gaze swept across them with quiet boldness before locking on Matthew.

Their eyes met again, his cold and aloof—but this time, she detected something else. Perhaps satisfaction, a premonition of her inevitable defeat. He must have thought he understood her limitations, her inability to escape the trap they had built around her.

But this time, she had no intention of playing the sacrificial lamb.

Scarlett shifted her weight and steadied herself, cradling her defiance with a soft laugh that sounded almost reckless in its audacity.

"And why," she spoke clearly, "should I apologize?"

The room froze. Even the clinking of tea cups and rustling of sleeves came to an awkward halt.

Frank stiffened visibly, his face darkening to a mottled crimson as his tea overflowed from trembling hands. "What did you just say?"

Firm, deliberate, like steel striking against stone, her words cut through the tension:

"First of all, I didn’t drug anyone. Why should I admit to fault for something I didn’t do? Second, the photographs circulating are so blurry they could resemble anyone. Just because a paparazzo claims it’s me, does that make it true? Did any of you personally catch me in the act? Did you see me enter Matthew’s bedroom? Or…” Her tone dropped, her gaze burning into Matthew himself. "Did you wake to find me there, Uncle Matthew ? And if so, if you truly were aware of what happened, would it not stand to reason that nothing untoward should have occurred? Could it be that someone else—someone less innocent—was involved instead?"

Silence crushed the atmosphere until even breaths felt out of place. Scarlett’s words hung lingeringly, their sharp edges impossible to ignore.

Unless Matthew admitted responsibility, unless he acknowledged her presence from the night before, her identity as the woman in those scandalous photographs would remain unconfirmed—suspicious yet inconclusive. And Matthew, resolutely loyal to Olivia and her connection to him, would sooner disown the very memory.

No matter what, he would protect Olivia.

Or so she believed.

But Matthew’s demeanor shifted unexpectedly. He lowered his gaze, his thumb stroking the jade ring in a contemplative motion—a stark deviation from his earlier disinterest. Slowly, his voice rolled out, quiet yet distinct.

"What did you just call me?"

"Uncle Matthew," Scarlett replied flatly, her voice devoid of warmth, her emotions buried far beneath her surface.

His lips curved ever so slightly, a smile devoid of joy. "Good." His gaze bore into hers, scrutinizing her resolve as though testing its fidelity.

For Matthew, civility was an armor—not weakness, not triumph. It settled comfortably upon him as he leaned back in his chair, hand resting lazily against the armrest, appearing completely composed. Yet an unspoken tension emanated from him, like a predator patiently observing its prey.

Scarlett held her ground, shoulders squared. Shivers coursed along her spine despite every effort to conceal them. Even reborn, her fear of him was unavoidable.

When Frank slammed his tea back onto the table, irritation rippling across his form, he barked, "Fine! Let’s hear it, then. If it wasn’t you, who do you claim it was?"

Scarlett relaxed her fists, her lips twitching upward at the corners. Slowly, deliberately, she raised her hand and pointed outward.

"Her.”

Olivia.

She blinked, startled, silent tears still clinging to her lashes. Her expression stiffened awkwardly, uncertainty clouding her features.

Scarlett let amusement curl her voice into sweetness; a smile both cruel and promising tugged at the corners of her lips, "You two deserve your star-crossed romance, don’t you? Let’s see how Matthew reacts once the truth becomes unavoidable."

Scarlett shivered as she knelt in the opulent hall, her head bowed low, every movement steeped in strained submission. She had long grown accustomed to playing this part in the grand theater of the Hartman estate, where dignity was just another fragile ornament sacrificed to keep the peace. But today, as her lips murmured mechanical pleasantries, her heart was a clamor of rage and disbelief.

Just hours earlier, she had watched, unblinking, as Olivia—a fallen heiress, adept in the art of manipulation—took center stage. Three years ago, Matthew, heir to the vast Hartman fortune, had announced his engagement to Olivia, a decision that defied even the wishes of the formidable Hartman patriarch himself. In an instant, she became the envy of every woman in the capital. Beautiful, charitable, poised—a perfect archetype crafted for public adoration.

But Scarlett saw through the façade. To her, Olivia was a master of pretense, an actress who could rival any Hollywood star. There was nothing genuine about the woman who now presented herself as the misunderstood heroine of a scandal that threatened Matthew’s standing within the family.

“Grandfather,” Olivia pleaded, emerging gracefully from the crowd. She knelt, imitating Scarlett’s earlier position with uncanny precision. Tears glistened on her cheeks, two rivulets of theatrical sincerity that could have softened the heart of any casual observer. “It’s all a misunderstanding. Someone confused me with Scarlett. We have similar builds and features, and I was mistakenly implicated.”

The crowd stirred. A voice rose from the throng with quiet skepticism, “But online, the rumors claimed Scarlett’s secret diary documented her feelings for Matthew for over five years. If that’s true, you wouldn’t even have met him yet, would you?”

Olivia smiled faintly, her gaze shifting but never losing its composure. “It’s true,” she said softly, her tone tinged with an almost poetic melancholy. “I’ve loved Matthew for years, long before he ever knew me. They were my secret thoughts, stolen by prying eyes. I never wanted these feelings exposed.”

For anyone but Scarlett, the performance was flawless. Olivia’s blush seemed born of raw vulnerability, and her trembling sighs spoke volumes that words could not. Even the disdainful murmurs began to soften; sympathy, so capricious in high society, began to tip in Olivia’s favor.

Scarlett’s lips twitched into a faint, bitter smile. In her previous life, she had fought to protect her dignity during moments like these, only to be thoroughly defeated by Olivia’s artifice every single time.