Chapter 13 - Savannah Refused to Be Hidden Again
For the first time since entering the mansion, Savannah set the pace.
“No more private handling,” she said.
The room turned toward her.
She stood with one hand on the back of the chair, the other on her belly, pale but unshaken. The previous night had already stripped away any remaining fantasy that this could be resolved quietly between polite adults.
“They wanted secrecy,” she said. “That’s how they got away with all of it.”
Rhett understood immediately what she meant.
If they kept this inside drawing rooms, offices, and attorney letters alone, Celeste would still try to spin herself into the victim and Savannah into the intruder. The observatory board, donors, and family allies would hear whispers instead of facts. Secrecy had been the instrument of the lie. Public clarity had to be the instrument of correction.
“What do you want?” Rhett asked.
Savannah met his eyes. “I want the truth told where the lie was supposed to be celebrated.”
Tonight’s private dinner party had dissolved too early for a public announcement, but many core guests remained on the estate in the guest wing and nearby hotel because the weekend gala series continued. The board luncheon for the observatory foundation was scheduled that afternoon in the main ballroom.
That was the room Celeste had been planning to use.
Savannah wanted it back.
Celeste stood abruptly. “You’re not dragging me through a spectacle because you regret sleeping with someone engaged.”
Rhett turned. “Sit down.”
She didn’t.
“Do you hear yourself?” she shot back. “You think those people will care about her feelings? They’ll care about scandal, paternity, and a pregnant mistress crawling into a family foundation—”
Savannah cut in, voice sharp as glass. “I was never your scandal. I was your obstacle.”
That silenced even Celeste.
Because it was true.
Rhett looked at Savannah and saw, perhaps for the first time with full clarity, how much she had already survived alone. The blocked doors. The fake message. The surveillance. The apartment visit. The clinic breach. The humiliation of not knowing whether he had abandoned her or been kept from her.
And still she had come, visibly pregnant, to a mansion where she knew she was not welcome, because her child deserved truth more than she feared disgrace.
“All right,” Rhett said.
Celeste stared. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
He looked at Gavin. “You’ll remain available to counsel. And if you disappear, I’ll release every document with your name on it before sunset.”
Gavin nodded once. He believed him.
Then Rhett faced Celeste.
“At the luncheon, I’m ending this publicly.”
Something almost animal flashed across her face then—not outrage, not shame, but a last surge of panic.
Because she finally understood the structure had reversed.
For months, she controlled who got into the room.
Now the room itself was about to judge her.
May you like
And for the first time since Savannah arrived, Celeste looked less like a future bride than like a woman standing on a trapdoor.
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