“And what is the great JK Kenzie going to say,” the hateful woman spat, “when he finds out his girlfriend begged on the streets … like a desperate woman selling whatever scraps of pride she had left?”
Her pulse hammered.
Run. Hide.
“Mrs. Bosch. Everything okay?” Anders appeared beside her, steady and silent as a wall.
She blinked. Justin had left her with protection. She could nod once and Daleen would be escorted off the property within seconds.
For one dizzying moment, she almost gave in.
And then she remembered Justin.
Remembered the way he’d looked at her when she told him the worst of it — steady, unflinching. The way he’d reached for her hand as if she’d offered him something precious instead of painful. As if her truth made him admire her more.
He didn’t judge her.
He didn’t recoil.
Something inside her clicked into place.
Suzette inhaled, slow and steady, grounding herself. She turned to Anders and murmured, “I have this.”
Then she faced Daleen.
And took a quiet, fierce satisfaction at the flicker of uncertainty that crossed the woman’s features.
“I did what any mother would do,” Suzette said, her voice carrying in the hush that had fallen. “If you want to shame me for that, go ahead. I’m done letting that moment define me.”
She let that settle for a beat, then stepped closer.
Calm, steady, unshaken.
“I lost my job because of your false accusations,” Suzette said, each word landing with measured precision. “It was your lecherous husband who approached me with an awful proposition — sleep with him, and he’d pay my rent. I told him to go to hell and filed a complaint with Pastor Cummings.”
Daleen stiffened. A ripple went through the onlookers.
“But you,” Suzette pressed on, “miserable, sour woman that you are … spread rumors about me and got me fired.” She heard someone gasp. “And when it got to the stage that I couldn’t feed my child” — her voice softened but lost none of its strength — “thatwas when I stood on the street corner and begged.”
She reached out, snatched the photograph from Daleen’s hand, and lifted it high for everyone to see.
“And this picture,” she said, her voice steady and ringing with hard-won truth, “is proof that you left a newly widowed mother and her child to starve. You saw me, even took a damned photo… yet you drove away. The shame doesn’t belong to me, Daleen. It belongs to you.”
The only sound was the echo of waves and the distant cry of gulls.
And the click of cameras.
But Suzette was past caring. Past hiding.
Daleen’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came. Her minions stared at the ground, their bravado evaporating under the weight of the truth.
And Suzette finally — finally — felt free.
“And just for your information, Justin knows everything about my past. Every. Little. Detail. And because of the wonderful man he is, it doesn’t change how he sees me. So go ahead. Do your worst, Daleen. I don’t care.” She turned her head towards Anders. “Please escort them off the property.”
The man flashed her an approving grin. “With great pleasure, ma’am.”
“We’ll help,” two burly men, both rugby players on holiday with their families flanked Anders. Daleen sputtered something about defamation as she walked away but it only earned her a withering look from the staff and an unimpressed snort from a nearby guest.
