“This is ridiculous.”
Miriam looked directly at him.
“No. What happened tonight is ridiculous.”
Alessia felt something tighten in her throat.
Her mother had never criticized Garrett openly before.
Not once.
Evelyn scoffed. “You should be grateful your daughter married into this family.”
Miriam’s expression changed.
For years, she had endured that implication because responding felt beneath her.
Tonight, she answered.
“My daughter built more before meeting your son than he has ever admitted.”
The room went silent again.
Garrett turned toward Alessia. “You told her our finances?”
Alessia stared at him in disbelief.
“That’s what you care about right now?”
“You’ve been discussing private matters with her?”
Alessia almost laughed, but there was no humor left in her.
Garrett had just humiliated her mother, fallen into a fountain after charging toward them, and tried to intimidate Alessia in front of a ballroom full of witnesses.
Yet somehow, his greatest concern was losing control of information.
That told her everything.
Alessia reached toward her left hand.
For a moment, Garrett did not understand what she was doing.
Then his eyes dropped to her wedding ring.
The gold band carried a large diamond surrounded by smaller stones, selected by Evelyn and approved by Garrett before Alessia had ever seen it.
At the time, she had thought it beautiful.
Now it felt heavy.
Garrett straightened.
“Don’t.”
Alessia slowly pulled the ring from her finger.
Evelyn inhaled sharply.
Miriam said nothing.
Garrett’s face drained of color.
“Alessia.”
She held the ring between two fingers.
This was the moment she had imagined during a dozen lonely nights and dismissed every time morning came.
Leaving Garrett had always seemed complicated.
There were properties, contracts, social expectations, shared investments, and families intertwined in ways that made departure feel like dismantling an entire life.
But none of those things felt complicated anymore.
They were paperwork.
This was the decision.
Garrett took a cautious step toward her.
“Give me the ring.”
Alessia looked at the diamond once.
Then she threw it.
The ring struck Garrett’s chest and dropped onto the wet marble near his shoe.
Several people gasped.
“You kicked my mother,” Alessia said. “Now crawl out of my house.”
No one moved.
Garrett stared at her.
He seemed unable to process the sentence.
Perhaps he had expected tears.
Perhaps he expected her to reconsider as soon as the initial anger faded.
Perhaps he still believed she would remember how expensive the wedding had been, how many guests had attended, how many photographs remained framed throughout the house, and decide that preserving appearances mattered more than what had happened tonight.
Alessia knew better now.
A marriage could not survive without respect.
And Garrett had just demonstrated, in front of everyone they knew, that he had none.
He looked toward the ring on the floor.
Then back at her.
“You don’t mean that.”
Alessia said nothing.
“Tell them to leave,” Garrett continued, gesturing toward the guests. “We’ll talk privately.”
“No.”
