Chapter 261

After Fiona finished speaking, a heavy silence descended over the room.
Lady stared in utter disbelief, her eyes wide with shock. “Alice, is all of this true?!” “No, Lady, I-”
“Don’t you dare say another word!” Lady was trembling with rage. “Wonderful. I treated you like my own granddaughter, and this is how you repay me? Deceit and manipulation?”
“No, Lady, you watched Alice grow up-she’d never do something like that!” Mary, desperate, rushed to defend her daughter. She shot Fiona a fierce glare. “You just said Alice was like a granddaughter to you, so how can you trust the word of a servant over hers?”
Anastasia let out a cold, mocking smile. The way Mary said the word “servant,” you’d think it was the lowest of the low. Had she forgotten she was a servant herself? Anyone overhearing might think she belonged to some noble family.
Seeing that Lady’s expression was starting to waver, Anastasia quickly cut in, “Well, Grandma, I’m your granddaughter-in-law, aren’t I? Why would you take Alice’s side over mine?”
She pressed on. “And besides, there’s Mr. Harrison Lancaster. Do you honestly think he’d stoop so low as to lie for Alice’s sake?”
The moment those words left her lips, Lady’s face darkened. Mary looked as if she wanted to protest, but Lady silenced her with a furious shout. “Enough!”
She turned to Alice with bitter disappointment. “So this whole story about being bullied was a lie? You were the one spreading rumors and slandering people at school, even going so far as to injure someone-and then you tried to play the victim?”
“I Alice’s face was ghostly pale. She could feel the servants’ contemptuous stares, the deep disappointment in Lady’s eyes, and the icy coldness in Mr. Harrison Lancaster’s gaze. Suddenly, she couldn’t hold back any longer; tears streamed down her cheeks.
“I never wanted this! But why?” She looked up, her eyes red and burning with resentment as she glared at Anastasia. “I’ve known Mr. Harrison Lancaster for years. We grew up together. What does Anastasia have that I don’t? Why should she be the one to marry Mr. Harrison Lancaster?”
Her voice shook with sobs. “If anyone should marry him, it should’ve been me! Who does Anastasia think she is?!”
The room fell into stunned silence.
Lady looked utterly astounded.
Even Anastasia was taken aback.
How could someone say something so shameless?
“Oh? And who do you think you are?” Anastasia shot back mercilessly, her tone sharp as a knife. “Why should you be the one to marry Mr. Harrison Lancaster? Because my mother is a remarkable woman, and because I’ve been engaged to him since we were children, that’s why!”
“And what do you have? A mother who works as a maid, and the gall to think you could ever compete?”
Even if Harrison was forced to marry someone outside his social class because of his illness, there was no way he’d pick a servant’s daughter! Fresh chapters posted on.net
“Marry you? Please. What are you, delusional? Just because you grew up in the Lancaster household, you think you’re entitled to him? There are plenty of servants in the house-should he marry all of them? Not even a rocket launcher could pierce through skin as thick as yours!”
Anastasia didn’t hold back for a second, her words cutting deeper than any blade. Alice’s face burned with humiliation.
She’d never felt so wronged in her life. Instinctively, she looked to Harrison for help-only to see that the usually cold and distant man showed her not a shred of sympathy. Instead, he calmly handed Anastasia a glass of water and asked, “Thirsty?”
His sharp features had softened with the faintest hint of a smile, his eyes radiating open affection and indulgence.
He didn’t even glance in Alice’s direction.