After Divorce, I Ruled Their World

The Uninvited Guests

Chapter 8: The Uninvited Guests

The screech echoed in the fancy hallway. Helena's two friends, Beatrice and Cynthia, just stared. Their eyes were wide as plates, looking from Julian to Iris and back to Julian.

Iris elt her face get hot. She tried to let go of Julian’s hand, but he held it firmly. His hand was warm and steady.

“Helena,” Julian said. His voice was calm, like he was talking about the weather. “This is a surprise.”

“A surprise?!” Helena spat, taking a step closer. She smelled like strong perfume and anger. “I asked you a question! What are you doing here? And who is she?” She pointed her finger at Iris like it was a weapon.

Julian didn’t want to talk. He felt tired just looking at her. “I have nothing to say to you. I’m leaving.” He tried to step toward the open elevator, pulling Iris gently with him.

“Stop right there!” Helena snapped, moving to block their way. She planted her hands on her hips. “Did I say you could go? You think you can just walk away from me?”

Julian let out a slow breath. He looked down at her. “I served Vivian the divorce papers. We’re done. Where I go, and who I’m with, is none of your business anymore.”

Helena let out a nasty laugh. It wasn’t a happy sound. It was mean. “Oh, so just because you’re divorced, you can forget all your manners? You think you don’t have to respect your elders anymore? I’m just an old woman, caring about what the younger generation is up to.” Her eyes, like little dark stones, looked at Iris up and down. A ugly smile twisted her lips. “Or is there something you’re hiding? Is this your… little friend?” She sneered. “You really aren’t picky, are you? Picking up strays now.”

Julian’s face went cold. The nice feeling from showing Ciara the apartment was gone. “Watch your mouth,” he said, his voice low and hard. “Show some respect.”

For a second, Helena just blinked. Then she threw her head back and laughed, a loud, fake cackle that made her friends jump. “HA! Respect? You want respect? A vampire who’s been living off my daughter’s money, and you have the nerve to talk about respect?”

Beatrice and Cynthia giggled behind their hands, their eyes mean. “She’s right, dear,” Cynthia said to Julian, like she was talking to a dumb child. “You should be more grateful.”

Iris had been quiet, her heart pounding. This was his family? This horrible woman was his mother-in-law? She thought of how kind Julian had been to her, a total stranger. He saved her life. He believed in her. And this woman was calling him names.

She couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “You should stop,”Iris said, her voice shaking a little. She stepped a tiny bit forward, even though she was scared. “Whether he was your son-in-law or not, he is a good man. A man worthy of respect.” She looked right at Helena. “You shouldn’t talk to him like that.”

Everyone froze. Helena’s eyes slowly moved from Julian to Iris. Her face turned a scary shade of purple-red. How dare this nobody, this girl in cheap clothes, tell her what to do?

“SHUT UP!” Helena roared, making Iris flinch. “Who do you think you are, butting in when I’m teaching a lesson to this useless piece of trash? This is family business! You have no right to speak!”

Iris felt tears sting her eyes, but they were tears of anger now. “I’m not butting in. I just… I think there’s a misunderstanding. Maybe between you and him, and your daughter…”

“Misunderstanding?” Helena cut her off, her voice suddenly turning sweet and poisonous. A nasty, playful smile spread on her face. She looked at Iris’s rumpled clothes, her tear-stained face. She looked at Julian, standing so close to her. “Oh, I see,” Helena said, nodding slowly like she’d figured out a big puzzle. “I get it now. So you two have slept together, haven’t you? And I bet he even gave you quite a bit of money, didn’t he? Is that why you’re defending him? How much did he pay you, you little slut?”

As she said the awful word, Helena suddenly shoved Iris hard in the shoulder.

“Hey!” Julian shouted. He moved fast, catching Iris before she could stumble into the wall. He held her steady, his arm around her. He could feel her trembling. Rage, hot and bright, flashed through him. He turned to Helena his eyes like ice. “Don’t you dare touch her. There is nothing like that going on. We are not what you think.”

“Nothing going on?” Helena shrieked, not believing him for a second. “Then why did you bring her to a hotel? To play checkers?”

Iris, her voice shaky but clear, tried to explain. She wanted the horrible misunderstanding to stop. “He brought me here to look at the apartment! That’s all! He was helping me!”

The words hung in the air.

Helena’s mouth, which was open to yell more, snapped shut. Her mean smile vanished. For a moment, she just looked confused.

“Apartment?” she repeated, her voice much quieter. Her eyes darted past them, through the still-open elevator door, into the huge, beautiful, empty penthouse. The penthouse Lucas had bought. The one he said was for him and Vivian.

Her brain tried to catch up. Julian was showing this girl… this apartment? How could he? He was poor. He was useless. He couldn’t afford a shoebox in this hotel.

A terrible, cold suspicion began to creep into her mind. She looked at Julian, like… she really looked at him. Not as the loser she thought he was, but as the man standing calmly in the hallway of the most expensive hotel in the city, holding keys to a penthouse she thought belonged to someone else.

Her heart gave a funny little thump. Something was very, very wrong.

She pointed a trembling finger, not at Iris this time, but at the keys still clutched in Iris’s hand. Her voice was shaky and i* came out as a whisper, full of a new kind of fear.

“That apartment…” she said, her eyes wide as something like realisation mixed with horror flashed in her eyes.

“…how do you have the keys to my daughter’s wedding home?”