Chapter 14
His eyes were fixed on my face with naked disbelief. “That’s impossible.”
One of Ethan’s cousins actually laughed out loud.
Someone in the back whispered, “Is he blind?”
Another voice muttered, “If this is ugly, I’ll take ugly.”
Cole was shaking his head now like if he denied reality hard enough it would rearrange itself for him.
“There are waterproof products,” he said rapidly. “She could be using stage-grade cosmetics. Someone get real remover. Brand-name remover.”
“That’s enough.”
Ethan’s voice cut through the room like a blade.
He stepped forward and faced Cole fully, one hand still holding mine.
“You want the truth?” Ethan said. “Fine. Here it is.”
The whole hall went silent again.
Ethan’s grip on my hand tightened.
“Cole Sterling,” he said, each word clear and level, “the face you see now is not a trick. It’s not a reveal. It’s not some elaborate fraud designed to humiliate you. This is how Ava has always looked.”
Cole stared at him.
Ethan continued, “Five years ago, before she married you, I told her that if you truly loved her, then you should be able to love her without beauty being part of the bargain. She agreed to a foolish test because she was in love and because I was desperate enough to hope you’d fail.”
A stunned hush spread across the guests.
Cole’s face emptied.
“What?” he whispered.
“She darkened her skin. Covered her face. Hid behind glasses. Not because she was ugly. Because she wanted proof that the man she loved could see past appearances.”
Ethan’s eyes were cold now. “And you failed faster and more completely than even I expected.”
I could hear my own pulse in my ears.
Cole looked at me as if seeing me for the first time and the last time all at once.
Ethan took one more step forward.
“She cried in bathrooms because of you,” he said. “She heard you call her disgusting. She watched you choose another woman over her again and again. And after all that, you still think the real betrayal here is that she didn’t let you keep judging her by the wrong face.”
Cole’s lips parted, but no sound came out.
His expression was almost unbearable to look at now.
Shock. Regret. Horror. And under all of it, something that might have been grief if he had earned the right to feel it.
I took a slow breath.
“Cole,” I said, and the sound of his name in my mouth made him flinch, “you never loved me. You loved what being with me cost you least. You loved what made you look noble. You loved what made you feel rebellious. Then, when I stopped serving those purposes, you discarded me.”
I touched my own cheek lightly.
“This face was never the point. The ugly makeup was never the point. The point is that whether I looked like this or not, I was still me. And you never once chose me.”
His eyes filled.
I felt nothing.
Security finally moved in.
This time, Cole didn’t fight them.
He let them take him.
As he was dragged toward the doors, he twisted around once and looked at me with a desperation so raw it almost made him look younger.
“Ava,” he choked out. “I was wrong.”
I looked at him for one final second.
Then I turned back to Ethan.
The doors closed behind Cole.
The room stayed silent for half a breath longer.
Then Ethan lifted my hand and pressed the ring into place with fingers that trembled just slightly.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
I shook my head.
“No,” I whispered back. “Now it’s perfect.”