Reborn to Ruin Him novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Engagement Party

Two hundred guests came to the engagement party, and I poured their champagne.

Rosalind had chosen my outfit herself, a plain black server's dress with a white apron.

"So you feel useful," she said, tying the apron strings too tight.

My burned hand was still wrapped in gauze. I carried the tray anyway.

Gabriel stood at the head of the ballroom in a black tuxedo, with Rosalind on his arm in white silk.

He saw me come in. His eyes stopped on the apron, his expression tightening into stone.

He looked away.

I moved through the room with the tray, and guests took their glasses without meeting my eyes.

"That's the adopted sister," I heard a woman whisper. "The one who tried to trap him."

"Is it true she poisoned his drink?"

"Of course it is. Why else would he make her do this?"

I smiled and kept pouring.

Trenton found me beside the piano. He was in his gray suit, with a glass in each hand, and he handed me one.

"You don't have to do this," he said quietly.

"It's one night."

"I could say you're ill."

"Thank you," I said. "Not yet."

He squeezed my elbow and drifted back into the crowd.

At nine, Trenton tapped a spoon on his glass and lifted it.

"To Gabe and Rosalind," he said. "To the best man I know and the woman who finally made him slow down."

Everybody laughed and drank.

Rosalind pressed her hand to her stomach and looked up at Gabriel with shining eyes.

Then she walked toward me.

She came straight across the ballroom with a glass of red wine in her hand, smiling at the guests she passed.

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