THE HEIR'S UNWANTED BRIDE

CELESTE'S POV

"Look at the state of these glasses," Margaret said, loud enough for the people closest to us to hear every word. "Can you not do anything right? Anything at all?"

I held my cheek, the stinging pain of the slap burnt on my face.

This was not the first time she was slapping me this hard but this time it felt a lot more painful.

I looked down at the tray. The glasses were fine. They were perfectly aligned and polished and there was nothing wrong with any of them. I knew that and she knew that and the three guests who had turned to look knew nothing except what they were seeing, which was a woman in a uniform being corrected by the lady of the house. Even when that lady of the house was your stepmother.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Sorry does not impress our guests," she said, already turning away. "Fix it."

She walked back toward the center of the room and the conversations around me slowly resumed and I stood there for a moment with my burning cheek and my perfectly arranged tray and breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth until the urge to cry passed.

Then I turned and walked toward the kitchen. Trying to avoid the burning eyes of the staff members.

I pushed through the kitchen door and set the tray down on the counter and stood there for a moment with both hands flat on the surface and my eyes closed.

Seven years. I had been doing this for seven years and my cheek still burned every single time. I always tried my best to avoid problems but it seems I was a problem magnet.

I straightened up, reached for the fresh tray that had been prepared, and turned to go back out.

Vivienne was leaning against the kitchen doorframe.

She had a champagne glass in her hand that was clearly not her first of the evening. Her eyes were bright in the way that meant she had been working her way through the open bar. I remember seeing her earlier lap dancing a blonde man.

"Oh, Cece," she said, in a mocking voice.

"I saw what happened out there. That looked painful."

"I'm fine," I said.

"Of course you are." She tilted her head. "You always are, aren't you? Tough little Celeste. Takes a slap and just keeps going." She clicked her tongue. "Honestly I don't know how you do it."

I picked up the tray and moved toward the door, I wasn't ready for her nonsense not today.

She shifted slightly, not quite blocking my way, just making sure I couldn't pass.

"I am still talking to you," she said pleasantly.

"I have to get back out there."

“No” She reached out and put one finger on the edge of the tray obviously trying to make me burn with rage. "You know Mummy only gets like that because you can't seem to do anything right—"

"Vivienne."

"—maybe if you focused on not being a silly little bitch things would be a lot better." Her finger pressed down slightly on the tray edge, not enough to tip it, just enough to make the glasses shift and clink against each other.

I felt the tray tilt, I pulled it back.

The motion was small and controlled but it caught her hand and pushed it away and she stumbled back half a step, more from the champagne than from anything I actually did, and the glass in her other hand sloshed.

A loud scream erupted from her mouth.

"What is wrong with you?" She clutched her hand to her chest like I had broken every bone in it. "She pushed me! Did everyone see that? She just pushed me!"

The staffs present in the kitchen turned to look at us.

"I barely touched you," I said.

"You shoved me!" Her voice climbed higher. "I was just trying to talk to you and you shoved me like some kind of animal! God, Celeste, you absolute old hag, what is your problem?"

The kitchen door swung opened and Margaret walked in. It all happened so fast right in front of me.

She took in the scene, Vivienne yelling that I pushed her and me standing in the kitchen looking angry.

"What is going on in here?" she asked.

"She pushed me, Mummy," Vivienne said, her voice shifting immediately, becoming smaller and more wounded. "I was just talking to her and she pushed me and nearly made me spill champagne all over myself and she called me—"

"I didn't call you anything," I said.

"She's lying," Vivienne said.

"I'm not lying."

"You are always causing scenes," Margaret said to me. "Every single event. Every single time."

"She came in here drunk and started—"

"I am not drunk."

"You've had four glasses of champagne in the last hour—"

"Enough." Margaret's voice cut across both of us. "I will not have this in the middle of a dinner. You," she said, pointing at me, "will apologize to your sister and then you will get back to work and you will not open your mouth again for the rest of this evening unless a guest is speaking to you directly. Do you understand me?"

The kitchen was quiet now. Everyone in it was looking at me.

I thought about apologizing. I had done it so many times that the word had lost almost all of its shape for me. Sorry had become a word I said to avoid things rather than something I actually felt.

I opened my mouth to speak but before I could the kitchen door opened again and someone else walked in.

"What's going on in here?"

My father's voice rang across the kitchen walls.

Hope bubbled in my chest, finally someone that would hear me out.

He stood in the doorway looking between all of us, his expression calm as usual.

"Howard," Margaret said, smoothing her expression immediately. "I'm glad you're here. Your daughter has been causing problems again."

"I haven't—" I started.

"She shoved Vivienne," Margaret continued. "In the middle of a kitchen full of staff. I don't know what has gotten into her tonight but she has been impossible."

"She started it," I said. "She came in here deliberately, she was drunk, she was trying to tip my tray—"

"I was not drunk," Vivienne said, widening her eyes probably to look convincing. "I was just trying to talk to her and she got angry and pushed me. I don't know why she's always so angry."

My father looked at me.

I looked back at him, hoping he would believe me and not them.

"Tell me what happened," he said to me.

I told him everything clearly, without exaggerating.

He listened.

And then he took three steps toward me and looked down at me with an expression that looked almost like disappointment.

"Why," he said quietly, "are you always embarrassing me?"

I felt my throat tighten.

He believed everything Margaret and Vivienne said but he couldn't believe his own daughter's words.

"I embarrass you?" My voice came out louder than I intended and I did not try to lower it. "I embarrass you? I have worked in this hotel for seven years. I have never once complained. I have taken everything your wife has done and your daughter has done and I have never once—"

"Lower your voice," he said.

"No," I said. "No, I will not lower my voice. Not this time. You didn't see what happened. You didn't ask. You walked in here and they told you a story and you believed it without giving me a single second to—"

"Celeste—"

"I am your daughter!" The words tore out of me before I could stop them, raw and ragged in a way I had promised myself years ago I would never let happen in front of him. "I am your daughter and you have never once, not once in seven years, stood up for me. Not once. And I am so tired of pretending that doesn't—"

A shrill sharp sound echoed in the kitchen that caught everyone's attention.

All eyes shifted to me as I held my burning cheek in pain.

Tears slowly began to fall from my eyes.