Chapter 248
Chapter 248:
Gigi clapped her hands. “Now, dessert. I want more chocolate.” She fixed Eliza with a sharp, glinting look. “And after that, we plan the wedding. It needs to be grand. I intend to wear my emeralds p>
Eliza laughed — a genuine, relieved laugh — and glanced at Dallas. He was watching her with that same intense look from the morning, steady and warm.
She had made it. She was a Koch. And for the first time, the name didn’t feel like a burden.
It felt like a shield.
The silence in the dining room was absolute, save for the soft clink of fine china being cleared by the staff. The air smelled of roasted coffee and the heavy, lingering scent of expensive perfume that seemed to emanate from Gigi. Ferd had retreated to his study hours ago, his exit less of a storm and more of a defeated shuffle, leaving the ten-million-dollar check sitting in the center of the mahogany table like a discarded napkin.
Eliza stared at it. The ink was a stark, black slash against the pale paper, a testament to Ferd’s aggressive, jagged handwriting. It was a fortune. It was an insult. It was freedom.
She reached out and picked it up. The paper felt thin between her fingers — flimsy for something that carried so much weight. She folded it once, neatly, pressing the crease down with her thumbnail until the edge was sharp. It felt less like money and more like a weapon she had just disarmed.
“Now, my turn,” Jeannine said.
Her voice cut through the quiet, devoid of the earlier hostility but lacking any real warmth. It was the tone of a woman settling a business transaction. Eliza looked up and saw the deep exhaustion behind the older woman’s eyes. The icy mask was still in place, but cracks were showing at the edges. This wasn’t a truce — it was a surrender.
Jeannine gestured sharply to a maid standing in the shadows near the sideboard. The maid stepped forward, carrying a box. It was not a jewelry store box. It was large, the size of a shoebox, covered in faded blue velvet worn smooth at the corners. It looked old. It looked like history.
R𝘦𝘢𝖽 𝘸𝗶𝗍𝗁o𝗎t 𝗶𝘯𝘁𝖾𝘳𝗋u𝘱tі𝗼ո𝘴 𝘰ո gа𝘭ոo𝘷е𝗹ѕ.𝖼o𝗺
Jeannine placed her hand on the lid. Her manicured fingers, usually so steady, trembled slightly.
“This was my dowry,” she said, her eyes fixed on the velvet. “From the Lynn family. When I married Ferdinand, this was the price of admission p>
She opened the lid.
The room didn’t simply brighten — it seemed to fracture. The light from the crystal chandelier caught the contents of the box and exploded into a thousand prisms of cold, white fire.
Inside lay the Koch Royal Set. A necklace of diamonds so large they looked like chips of ice, matching drop earrings heavy enough to strain a lobe, and nestled in the center, a tiara. It was a delicate, terrifying thing of platinum and diamonds, rising in sharp, elegant spikes.
Azalea gasped — a sharp intake of breath that echoed through the large room. She leaned forward, her eyes wide. “Grandma,” she whispered. “That’s the Coronation Set p>