Chương 14: Buzz kill

All eyes, cameras, and microphones were on Adele as she stood before a seated damsel in distress. Brianna looked so pitiful, her eyes red and puffy, her face swollen, and a large chunk of carbs on her plate.

Women of their status and stature were always conscious of their appearance. They only ate food rich in carbs when depressed or recently heartbroken.

Brianna played her cards extremely well; Adele found it almost amusing that she tried so hard to make her into the bad guy. Adele wouldn't try explaining herself; she could honestly care less what anyone thought of her.

Brianna's grandmother looked at Adele with pure disdain as she spat, "We are waiting." She was even more impatient than Brianna and possibly even more upset.

She warned her granddaughter not to invite Adele to the wedding, but Brianna didn't heed her words and even made the jezebel into her maid of honor!

Over ten years ago, she warned her grandson to stay away from that viper, but he didn't listen to her either and had his heart shattered when it was most vulnerable.

'How can someone fall in love with a woman like Adele?' the elderly woman would wonder. Women must be warm and delicate, but Adele was the exact opposite. She lacked class and decorum!

"Such beauty is wasted on her," the elderly woman mumbled. Her lips trembled with curses as she stared at the blank-faced woman. Adele's dead, emotionless gaze spurred all the rage bubbling at the pit of her stomach.

Adele could only stand there with a blank expression and her lips in a tight line. She had never apologized for anything in her life, not earnestly, at least.

'I didn't think this through,' Adele thought. She couldn't think of what to say and struggled to grasp how to say it.

"You're an actress, Adele," she mumbled with a deep breath. "You can pull this off."

"If you're talking to Brianna, she can't hear you," one of the bridesmaids by Brianna's side sassily jeered.

Adele kept her head lowered as she rolled her eyes, ignoring the cameras and lights and all the mumbling to focus on the apology she was scripting in her mind.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" Elliot questioned in a whisper as he went beside her.

"I'm still trying to figure out what to say," Adele whispered. "I've actually never done this before."

Elliot furrowed his brows, "Done what?" He raised a perfectly arched brow, "Apologized?"

"Yes," Adele irritatedly whispered. "Now tell me what to say."

Elliot shrugged, "Just say you're sorry."

"As if that'd be enough," Adele rolled her eyes. Her eyes briefly met Brianna's before returning to the tiled floor. She pursed her lips, "The damn bitch would probably even want me to go on my knees and kiss her fucking feet."

"Just say it," Elliot urged. "She either accepts it, or she doesn't."

A quiet sigh left Adele's lips as Elliot stepped away from her. She raised her head, and for the first time in her life, she was actually nervous. Adele had always played the coldhearted villain in the movies she starred in; she had no experience pretending to feel remorse.

Regardless, she met Brianna's eyes.

"Brianna," Adele started, but before she could finish, the front doors to the dining room flew open, pulling everyone's attention to the sound of heels clicking against the tile.

Adele was momentarily relieved that the attention was diverted from her. Still, she was again thrown into the blender when her mother started marching toward her with a bright smile spread across her face and Governor Harold in tow, also looking exceptionally happy.

Immediately, Adele's heart started to race as pain ran through her temples. Her mother, smiling, had always been a sign of impending doom. She never smiled like that unless she was delivering extremely bad news that would turn Adele's world upside down.

"Governor Harold explained everything!" Maria, Adele's mother, exclaimed. All cameras fell on the Brazillian woman as she swayed side to side in her heels, her arms flailing about as she struggled to maintain her balance.

"My daughter wasn't sucking off the prince," she slurred. "She's not a slut." Maria staggered to one of the cameras while pointing aggressively, "She's not a slut!"

Governor Harold held onto her arm before she could fall forward on the camerapersons. "Perhaps you should sit down, Mrs. Ricci," he gently urged.

A tight-lipped smile replaced Adele's dumbfounded and anxious expression before she burst into laughter. "Bloody hell, mom," Adele laughed. "Are you drunk?"

"I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Brianna's grandmother muttered after a hmph.

Maria's bulging eyes fell on Brianna's grandmother, and the governor could almost not hold the drunk Brazillian woman back as she marched toward the older woman.

"I guess I could say the same for your family," Maria spat in her Brazillian accent. "You got pregnant before marriage, so did your daughter, and now even your granddaughter!"

The crowd gasped at Maria's words, but the Brazillian woman didn't end there.

She raised a challenging brow as she fought against the restraints that were Governor Harold's arms. "Is getting pregnant for rich men to get into their family what your family does to survive?!"

Brianna's grandmother was speechless; she could only stare at Maria with wide eyes, gradually pooling with tears as chatter filled the room. She didn't dare allow her eyes to travel the room; she could feel the judgemental stares of all the socialites present.

Most people were dumbfounded, and others were excited about the drama, but Adele loved the sudden turn of events so much that she couldn't stop laughing; she was on the verge of rolling on the floor.

Brianna was the first to run out of the dining area when reporters immediately started screaming questions at her and her grandmother. The world had seen the truth of their family and her and Daniel's relationship.

She was drowning in shame.

Adele's knees bucked, and her breathing became short from laughing too hard; even tears started streaming from her eyes.

"We should get your mother out of here," Elliot whispered in her ear as he latched onto her arm.

"What?" Adele looked at him with a frown and asked, "Why?" She giggled, "I want to see what else she'll do."

"Remember that talk we had about you becoming a better person?" Elliot questioned.

The amusement left Adele's face as she sighed before muttering, "You're such a buzz kill."

With another sigh, she latched onto her mother's arm and started guiding the Brazillian woman toward the front doors of the dining room. "Let's get you out of here before you do anything crazy," Adele told her in a monotone.