Thirteen

MY EYES WENT TO HIM AGAIN, AND HE SMIRKED as if he knew I was thinking of him. But before I could go there, the expected happened. Lorena and Cecilia must have been really pissed off by the fact that I really managed to get everyone's attention and admiration at my birthday party.

"Now that we are all in a good mood thanks to my little sister's musical talents," the whore began, gaining the attention she wanted so badly, and I clenched my fists. "As my husband isn't present, since he had some affairs to deal with, I'll be the one to tell you the grand news!" She said with a big smile.

The bastards, her mom, and our dad came closer to her, showcasing how they looked like a family without me in the picture. Making me nauseous for all the wrong reasons. To survive this, I took another glass of the drink and took some steps back until I reached him, and he held me by my waist before I could fall after I stepped over his feat.

"How are you feeling? You drank more than 10 glasses already, it's not good for you!" He began, his voice way too close to my ear, spreading goosebumps down my body.

"I feel like crap. And don't start now. You drank as much as I did. You think I didn't notice how, at each glass I drank, you also drank the same? This way we'll be wasted together before the ball ends!"

"I'll never be wasted, alright?" I don't think he understood what I meant by that, though. "Besides, I believe the ball is close to its ending," he mocked. "I got your mnemonic mage." After making a sign with his right index finger, a Knight came forth. "This is Sir Ollie De Wolf. He's one of my men, and is a mage with a strong memory manipulation type of magic, as you asked me."

Oh? "You are good at this."

"I'm not good, Lady Hope, I'm outstanding at literally everything I do," alright, he has quite the ego, doesn't he? I don't mind it though, it's charming. "Thank you, by the way. Remember me that owes you for this later!"

A nod, "I will!"

Then we turned to where the clown was, "I have the honor to tell you beforehand, that I am pregnant with our first child," everyone gasped at that, and she caressed her belly which wasn't so flat anymore.

Some began congratulating her, while others turned to look at me. Probably pitying the fact that less than three months ago I broke off my engagement, he married my half-sister, and now she's pregnant with him. It's humiliating, to say the least.

"You are forgetting something, sister!" I began, with a vicious grin on. "Why don't you also tell them what you told us earlier? That you are three months pregnant?"

She turned pale and both she and the rest of our disgusting family members glared at me as if they could kill me with their eyes. Weren't they proud of her before? Why does that look now?

"Yes, guys. My sister is three months pregnant. I learned about it earlier today, and they even ordered me to congratulate her for it," I chuckled viciously, and before Leopold could reach me, the man holding me by my waist put himself in front of me. Feeling strangely safe, I kept going as if nothing happened. "And serves as a reminder to tell you that I broke off my engagement with Jacob less than three months ago. So, you can imagine what they did behind my back!"

"Stop being bitter and jealous, Hope Ariella Bissonnette!" Dad yelled, sending to hell his calm image in front of the nobles present. "Stop lying! Your brother-in-law is the one who broke off the engagement. Not you! Why are you lying?"

I scoffed, "Ah, dad, my mother must be cursing you up there from heaven right now. And as I knew you would deny and call me a liar if I told them the truth, trying to damage my social image more than your bastard daughter already did, I prepared you something!"

"Wha…what?" Lorena gasped. "What are you scheming now, Ariella?" Yeah, of course, my stepmother calls me by my middle name just because I don't like it. How cliché.

I rolled my eyes and made a sign for Sir Ollie De Wolf to come forth. "Well, I just met this boy now. He's Sir Ollie De Wolf, a strong mnemonic mage. You all must know that when you watch someone's memories through a mage like him, the person can't lie, or change the memory to their advantage, right?"

Leopold gasped in horror, "What insane act do you think you are doing?"

"Shut up, little bastard," I hissed. "I'm going to show them the truth. I won't let any of you degrade my image anymore," I took the glass of champagne from the tray of the waiter that passed by me and drank it in one go. "And if you don't have anything to hide, you won't get in my way!"

When all the other nobles began to agree with me, probably because they were excited to see what it was. Nobles always care for gossip, they must be starving for this. And they brought this for themselves. If she hadn't tried to take away my spotlight on my birthday ball, I wouldn't be doing this. I would honestly have let it go slide, but she didn't, so she'll get a taste of my venom since I got a taste of hers.

"And I should warn you to take all the underage kids out of here just for this moment," I made a sign for the hot stranger and he let go of me. Then I turned to the Knight and told him the exact day he should search for it. "Sir Hotness," I whispered to him, "you should hold my shoulders just in case my body gets weak while he's inside my mind."