Chapter 31

Evelyn shoved the phone Victoria thrust at her. "I don't want to see it!"

Tears streamed down her face as she turned to Liam with desperate eyes. "Tell me, Liam! Tell me I wasn't wrong about this!"

Liam moved toward Evelyn before kneeling gracefully. His strong hands enveloped her trembling fingers.

"Grandmother," he soothed in that velvet voice, "don't distress yourself. If you believe Evelyn is Cassandra, then she is Cassandra. Your heart knows best."

Victoria sprang up like a jack-in-the-box. "Liam, I'm the real Cassandra!" Her shrill voice cut through the garden. "You can't rewrite history just to humor her! How long will you let her live in this fantasy?"

"Enough!" Liam's voice cracked like thunder.

The sheer fury in his stormy eyes froze Victoria mid-breath. Her lower lip trembled as unshed tears glistened.

Margaret gazed at Evelyn with heartbreaking tenderness. "She has Cassandra's spirit," the elderly woman murmured. "I'd recognize that light anywhere."

Victoria stomped her designer heels into the grass. "Grandmother, open your eyes! Liam has always loved me! His marriage to Evelyn means nothing!"

"You're destroying him with this charade! Their divorce is inevitable! Why must you be so blind?"

Victoria's venomous words hung in the air like poison. She'd crossed a line no one dared approach.

Liam saw red. His jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked dangerously. What twisted upbringing had warped Victoria into this viper?

Margaret's cheeks flushed crimson. Her delicate hands shook as she pointed at the younger woman. "How dare you speak to me like that?"

The Thorn matriarch had lived eighty years with grace and kindness. To be insulted by this spoiled brat?

She rose unsteadily, tears blurring her vision. "Leave!" Margaret's voice shook with decades of unused anger. "Get out of my sight!"

Evelyn rushed to steady the swaying woman. "Breathe, Grandmother," she urged, rubbing soothing circles on Margaret's back. "Your blood pressure—"

Then to Liam: "Remove her. Now."

Liam seized Victoria's arm with bruising force, dragging her toward the estate gates.

"I won't go!" Victoria shrieked, digging her heels in. "She's the fraud! That gold-digging whore who slept her way through high society! She even married some senile old—"

Each vile word struck Evelyn like a physical blow. Even without memories, the accusations left her raw.

Inside the gazebo, Margaret gasped for air.

Liam released Victoria so abruptly she stumbled. He was at Margaret's side in three strides, scooping the unconscious woman into his arms.

Victoria stood frozen as Liam charged past, Evelyn close behind with panic written across her face. The garden echoed with the pounding of their footsteps against the cobblestones.