Valerie put Little Roe to bed and came out when she saw her family gathered around some files.
"Vicky, you are back—" Her breath hitched when she saw a glimpse of a picture sticking out from one of the files.
She frantically went through them in disbelief.
"Wh-What is this!"
Azrael's medical report, testing positive for Phencyclidine (PCP), a powerful dissociative drug, with that night's date was in her trembling hand.
Scattered around were pictures that were used in her university forum to humiliate her years ago. In the pictures with clear timestamps, she's seen entering a suite. Next was the record of that room being booked under his name during that period.
Valerie looked around at her family, not meeting their eyes.
When you look at all these together, it clearly looks like she took advantage of a drugged man by seducing him.
"I-It's not what it looks like! I didn't remember anything wh-when I woke up—"
"Of course you didn't do it!" Victor paced angrily. "How dare that bastard try to humiliate you like this!"
For years, the Sinclairs believed Roe was a drunken mistake, but this complicated matters.
William sighed, "It doesn't matter what it really was. If he takes this to court, the court will terminate your guardianship of Little Roe and hand it to him."
Valerie burst out crying. "I swear I don't even remember drinking. I don't know how this happened!"
Victor felt something stabbing his heart. When he held his sister for the first time as a baby, he swore he would always protect her.
He watched her grow up. He took care of her after they lost their parents. But right now, he couldn't do anything for her.
Eleanor only sat on a side, muffling her sobs.
...
After crying in her room, Valerie went to wash her face in the bathroom, stopping to stare at herself in the mirror.
Her blonde hair was spread messily. Her green eyes were bloodshot. Eleanor quietly entered her room and slowly started combing her hair.
They avoided eye contact in silence for a while.
"Why didn't you tell us it was him?" Eleanor asked.
Valerie met her sad eyes before looking away.
She knew her aunt and uncle. They would have confronted him. Eleanor raised her like a greenhouse flower. She would have forsaken it all for her, not caring how it would affect the them.
If she knew, she would have gone straight to him to beg him to marry her so Valerie could keep her reputation.
"I... wasn't sure."
Eleanor stared at her before nodding. "I'll not tell you to marry him."
Valerie looked up, surprised.
"Do what you want. Things are not like five years ago. We will support you in whatever you decide." She smiled solemnly, smoothing her hair lovingly. "But I'll tell you what I think."
"...Thank you, Auntie." She was thanking her for not asking further.
"Dear, you said he asked you to marry him." Eleanor began to twirl her hair into a braid. "You don't need to marry him, but if you marry him today and even divorce him tomorrow, Little Roe will have Azrael Hawthorne's name behind him."
When Valerie looked close to bursting in tears, Aunt Eleanor hugged her. "Life for kids with broken families is hard, and didn't you say he was nice to Roe?"
"But he's... he's a horrible man who did unspeakable things to get power in his family and is threatening to frame me and take Roe away." She sniffled, trying to control her sobs. "He goes around with prostitutes! Now we know he does drugs too! How could I live with a man like him forever?"
Eleanor shook her head, caressing her hair. "Dear, you don't need forever. You just need his name beside Roe. In this wretched society, the life of a divorcee is a hundred times better than that of a woman who had a child out of wedlock, especially of a man like Azrael Hawthorne. They will call you and Roe despicable things."
After talking to her for a while, her aunt put her to bed with a glass of milk, but she couldn't sleep.
Her aunt didn't understand anything. Azrael Hawthorne scared her... even if he did something wrong to her later, how could she stop him?
Valerie sighed, about to sleep, when a text came in. She fished out her phoone ready to ignore it. Since that day on the airport, her phone had been ringing with texts, calls, and notifications nonstop, but she didn't have the courage to check them.
Her hand froze, it was Azrael's number.
'8 pm, Imperial Hotel.'
Imperial Hotel...? That was the hotel they slept together in!
Scoffing, she was about to put her phone back when her eyes fell on the several links her contacts had shared with her.
Hesitantly, she clicked on one Insti post. Her heart sank immediately.
{Seasoned Artist or a Seasoned Slut? Sinclair's Heiress exposed as the other woman!]