Carly stood her ground at the center of the room, framed by fairy lights and cheap champagne flutes, her face ghost-white and her hands shaking like brittle leaves. She looked like a woman who’d finally realized there was no good way out. Only the truth, and the consequences waiting behind it.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Carly said, voice cracking halfway through.

The room stilled. A few glasses clinked down onto tables. The low hum of whispered conversations stopped entirely.

She swallowed hard and kept speaking, even as her bottom lip trembled. “I lied. About everything.”

It wasn’t loud. The words landed like dropped plates, shattering whatever false reality Daniel had tried to sell.

The crowd shifted subtly, closing in with their eyes if not their bodies. Waiting. Wanting. Hungry.

Carly turned toward Daniel, her hands fisting the silky fabric of her dress as if it could hold her together.

“I had you tested,” she said, her voice rough with guilt. “Months ago.”

Daniel’s brow furrowed, confusion flickering across his face.
“What are you talking about?” His voice was sharp, demanding, the beginning rumble of a man who still thought he could force an answer he liked.

Carly’s voice broke completely. “You’re infertile.”

The words slapped the room harder than any scandal could have.

I felt the collective exhale, the invisible ripple of people leaning closer, not daring to blink. Someone gasped audibly near the food table. Someone else dropped a glass. The sharp tinkle of breaking stemware punctuated the silence like an exclamation point.

Daniel barked out a hollow laugh, but it sounded more like disbelief. “That’s insane. Don’t be ridiculous—”

Carly cut him off, her words tumbling out faster now, desperate to get it over with.

“I opened the results myself. It was never bad timing. It’s you, Daniel. No motility. No movement. No chance.”

Daniel’s parents stood frozen behind him. His mother pressed one manicured hand to her mouth as if she could physically shove the truth back inside. His father didn’t even look at Carly; he simply turned away, staring into the corner of the room like if he focused hard enough, he could pretend none of this was happening.

Daniel shook his head, slow and stubborn. “You knew? You knew all this time and still—”

“I thought,” Carly said, voice shaking, “if I could give you some version of it… maybe it wouldn’t matter. Maybe you’d stay.”

He flinched like she’d hit him. “You humiliated me,” he hissed, his voice climbing. “You used me, and now you’re trying to blame it all on—”

“I wasn’t the one lying about who I was,” Carly shot back, her own voice sharp now, fueled by months of swallowed guilt. “I didn’t destroy a marriage just to find out I wasn’t even replacing someone. I was standing in an empty space you left behind.”

Sabrina, quiet all night, finally broke in, voice dripping with disgust. “We’re a joke.”

It wasn’t even angry. Just resigned.

Daniel spun toward his family, looking for backup, but found only blank faces. His mother’s expression had hardened into something colder than disappointment. His father refused to meet his eyes.

The Carrington family, the dynasty that had so carefully guarded its image, was crumbling before everyone’s eyes.

And somewhere across the glittering wreckage of that night, I felt the world tilt under my feet.

The nausea hit like a punch. My stomach twisted. My vision blurred. The edges of the room melted together into a swirl of light and shadow.

I tried to breathe. I tried to steady myself. I didn’t want to collapse, not here, not in front of them.

But my knees buckled anyway.

A scream cut through the stunned silence, I couldn’t tell if it was mine or someone else’s, and then suddenly there were arms around me, strong and steady, anchoring me before I could hit the floor.

“Elena,” Nicholas said, his voice low and urgent against my hair. “I’ve got you.”