The Captain I Married by Chance novel Chapter 226

Nora stepped out of the restroom stall and stood before the grand, gilded mirrors, carefully checking her hair and makeup. Dinner had worn away some of her lipstick, so she pulled a fresh tube from her clutch to touch it up.

"Did you hear? The grandson of the Peyton Therapeutics chairman is supposed to make an appearance tonight."

The gossiping voices drifted in from the lavish corridor outside. Nora wasn't paying much attention until the words fully registered. Her hand froze midway to her lips.

The grandson of the Peyton Therapeutics chairman?

That was the man she was supposedly engaged to—the fiancé she had yet to actually meet. Nora's first instinct was to pull out her phone and call her grandfather to see if the rumor was true. But she quickly dismissed the idea. The old man had no idea she was even at this gala. Why would he have warned her?

She set her phone down on the marble counter, intending to finish her lipstick, when the screen suddenly illuminated with a new message.

[I'm almost there.]

It was from Nathan Peyton.

He was actually coming? Nora quickly shoved her phone and lipstick back into her bag and hurried toward the exit.

"Hey—"

A sudden, violent shove hit her shoulder. Nora lost her balance, stumbling backward. Operating on pure instinct, she threw her hand out and grabbed onto the person in front of her to keep from hitting the marble floor. The moment she steadied herself and looked up, a sharp, stinging slap cracked across her cheek.

"Miss, let's try to be logical and use our words like adults," Nora said evenly. "You shoved me, slapped me without provocation, and then accused me of not being able to afford your dress. I simply stated the objective facts of what just occurred. I never once used the word 'scam'."

A hot wave of anger was rapidly building in Nora's chest. She was the one who had been assaulted. She was the one being publicly humiliated. Why couldn't these entitled psychos just go form their own isolated society and leave normal people alone?

"That's exactly what you were implying! Let me make this clear—if you don't get on your knees and apologize to me right now, you are going to regret it!"

Nora's head snapped up, the last threads of her carefully maintained patience snapping completely.

"You want an apology? Fine. Let me shove you into a wall, slap you across the face, and then I will gladly apologize!"