My Husband Watched His Mistress Hit Our 6-Year-Old Daughter—Then My Father Walked Into the Room

The first sound Claire Bellamy heard was not her daughter's scream.

It was Sophie's little tooth hitting the marble floor.

White. Perfect. Ridiculously small beneath a chandelier worth more than most houses.

Three hundred guests went silent.

Sophie was six years old. She was on the floor with blood on her lips, one hand pressed to her mouth, staring up at Vivienne Cross.

Vivienne looked down at the splash of fruit punch on Sophie's pale-blue dress.

"You ruined a forty-thousand-dollar dress," she said.

Claire stopped breathing.

Then she moved.

"Sophie!"

She crossed the ballroom so fast she knocked into a waiter. A tray crashed behind her. She barely heard it.

Sophie was shaking.

"Mommy..."

Claire dropped beside her, saw the blood, saw the red shape of fingers across her cheek, and turned.

Vivienne had the nerve to look annoyed.

"She threw the drink at me. I barely touched her."

Claire shoved her back.

"You hit my child."

Someone gasped. Cameras flashed.

Then a hand clamped around Claire's wrist.

Julian.

Her husband. Sophie's father.

For one stupid second, Claire thought he had finally come to protect them.

Instead, he hissed, "You just attacked Vivienne in front of everyone."

Claire stared at him. "Sophie lost a tooth."

"Lower your voice."

"Look at her!"

"You're making a scene."

Claire tried to pull away. Julian tightened his grip, shoved her backward, and she hit the marble hard enough to send pain through her hip and shoulder.

Sophie screamed.

"Mom!"

Claire crawled to her and pulled her close. Blood soaked into the front of Claire's white dress.

Julian looked at both of them.

Then he said the sentence Claire would hear in her sleep for years.

"You both deserved what happened."

Sophie lifted her wet eyes. "Dad?"

He didn't even answer her. He turned to Vivienne.

That was when the ballroom doors opened.

Four men in dark suits entered first. Behind them walked Arthur Bellamy, Claire's father, the man who had built Bellamy Infrastructure from two rented trucks into a national empire.

Arthur saw Claire on the floor.

He saw Sophie.

He saw the blood.

Then he saw the tooth on the marble.

His face went still.

"Who touched my daughter?"

Nobody answered.

Arthur's gaze moved to Sophie.

"And who touched my granddaughter?"

Julian went pale.

Claire thought that was the worst thing that could happen to him.