Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 4

Chapter 4 A Lesson

Nora sneered, “You shameless piece of work. You took my mother’s marriage, and the bastard you squeezed out is running around taking things from me too, and you’ve still got the nerve to come in here crying first.”
Nora put a hand on the back of Yvette’s head and slammed her face into the floor.
Yvette screamed.
“Who gave you two the idea you were allowed?” Nora let go, planted a foot in the middle of Yvette’s back, and pressed her flat against the boards.
Victor and the rest heard the screaming and came running, and they arrived just in time for that.
He rushed over and hauled Nora off her, snapping at her as he did. “Have you lost your mind? Beating on your elders like that. What do you think people will say?”
Nora looked back at him without heat. “She came in here accusing me of stealing Mandy’s marriage, so I put her on her knees in front of my mother and showed her what stealing a marriage actually looks like.
“And I told her to stay out of my way, because I don’t care who somebody is, I’ll swing at them.”
Living beside Adrian had trained the habit into her. She had learned to settle things with her hands.
Some people were simply built that way. Reason bounced off them, and one good beating was the only thing that made them behave.
Victor’s eyes landed on the photograph, and he looked away from it fast and turned on Yvette instead. “Enough. Sit down and talk it out like adults.”
Mandy hurried over and pulled Yvette up off the floor. “Mom, you’ve got this wrong. The watch is mine.”
Yvette hurt everywhere, and she still could not let it go. “But it was obviously…”
Mandy cut her off, loud. “It’s mine. Nora was holding it for me.”
Mandy sounded so certain that Yvette faltered, half believing her. “It’s really yours?”
Mandy nodded. “It is. Let’s go talk in my room.”
Nora saw them turning to leave and her voice went flat. “You accuse me, you wake me up, and now you’re just walking out?”
Yvette had taken a beating and her temper was still up. “You’ve already hit me. What more do you want?”
Nora did not blink. “An apology.”
Yvette started to refuse, and Mandy tugged at her sleeve and talked her down. “Mom, apologize to Nora. You had it wrong this time.”
“You…”
Victor’s face was set hard as he backed them up. “Apologize to Nora. Now.”
She was the one on the floor with a broken finger, and now the two people closest to her were not only refusing to take her side but actively pushing her to apologize to Nora.
The unfairness of it sat in Yvette’s chest like a stone. “I’m sorry.”
Then she wiped at her eyes and ran out of the room.
Mandy looked over at Nora. “I’m sorry about that. My mom didn’t know the situation. It won’t happen again.”
Nora acknowledged it lazily and left it there.
Nora knew the apology was not real. Mandy was only afraid she would talk and cost her the future richest man in the country.
Fighting the Pierce house from the inside had drained her the first time and she needed room to breathe, and settling accounts for her grandmother and her mother would take a longer, colder kind of planning.
For now, she would let Adrian put Mandy through the wringer.
Victor and the others cleared out.
Nora looked up at the nervous housekeeper standing there, skin tanned and rough from work, eyes clear and bright. “Hattie Munroe?”
Hattie went stiff with nerves. “Yes, I’m Hattie Munroe. Miss, Miss Sinclair, whatever you need.”
Am I getting fired? Hattie thought.
I’ve only been here three days. If they let me go now there’s no paycheck, and if I can’t send money home they’ll take it out of me.
Nora kept it simple. “From now on, you work for me.”
When Nora was locked up in her last life, Hattie had come to the Pierce house to bring her things, and all Nora asked of her was to carry one message to Victor, a plea for help.
Hattie never made it to the Sinclair house. A car ran her down on the way.
Adrian was out of his mind, and Nora had learned it the hard way.
Hattie’s eyes went wide and bright with relief. “Thank you, Miss Sinclair. I’ll work hard for you, I promise.”
Nora hummed. “I don’t feel like going down for dinner. Bring it up here.”
Hattie went downstairs looking happier than she had come in.
*****
Downstairs in the study, the air had gone tense.
Yvette held an ice pack against her forehead and frowned at Mandy. “The Westons are bringing the settlement papers tomorrow. Now you don’t want him? Do you have any idea what the difference is between the Westons and the Pierces?”
The Westons held the top of the Big Four and the biggest fortune in the country, while the Pierces sat third.
That gap was a canyon.
Marrying the heir to the richest family alive was the kind of match that came along once in a generation, and Yvette had no intention of letting Nora anywhere near it.
Mandy’s voice climbed with excitement. “Have you never once asked yourself why the Westons skipped every society daughter in the country and picked the little Sinclair family? It’s because Julian Weston is dying. They want him married before he goes, and they want an heir out of it!”