The Almighty Dominance novel Chapter 811

Nobody in the ballroom breathed.

Natasha picked up the folders, both of them, and held them against her chest like a schoolbook.

"The House of Tiffany punished Miss Serena Tiffany tonight," she said. "Before the whole coast. It told us it will not have her. It told us Patricia is its head."

She looked down at the Baroness on the step.

"So this meeting is over. Halcyon will never work with the House of Tiffany again. Not this year. Not ever." A small, cold pause. "I am sorry. But Halcyon does not get played."

The Baroness's mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Natasha lifted the folders a little higher, so the back of the room could see them.

"Tomorrow, I will sell these loans. To anyone on this coast who wants the Tiffanys and the Pryces finished." Her eyes went slowly round the tables. "I think I'll have a long line."

Nobody laughed. Half the room looked down at their plates, because half the room had wanted exactly that for years.

"By tomorrow night," Natasha said, "I want to see them lose everything. The house. The name. Nothing left to start again with."

The Baroness got up.

It took her two tries. Her cane was at the bottom of the stairs, and nobody brought it to her. She caught Natasha's sleeve with one shaking hand.

"Ms. Vale. Please." Her voice cracked down the middle. "Three hundred years. Please don't do this. I am asking you. I am begging you."

Natasha looked at the hand on her sleeve as if a bird had dropped something on it.

"Who do you think you are?"

The Baroness let go.

"An hour ago you told this whole room that Halcyon could not sign without your house." Natasha smoothed her sleeve. "I want to destroy you. Who says I can't?"

She walked down the steps.

"A house of bitches like yours," she said, without turning round, "is better off on the street."

The great doors closed behind her.

Outside, a car engine started, and drove away.

The Baroness stood on the podium with the whole coast staring at her, and in her head Natasha's voice said it again, flat as a bill.

As a gift. For Miss Serena Tiffany.

She turned toward the doors where her granddaughter had gone.

---

The rain came off the sea in long cold sheets.

Serena sat on the low wall above the beach with her arms around her knees. Her best dress was soaked through. She was not crying. She was counting the waves.

A jacket came down over her shoulders.

It was warm. It smelled of the kennel and the coal stove.

"Being the face of that house isn't a treasure, wife," Alex said, and sat down beside her on the wet stone. "And they shouldn't treat you like that. Nobody should."

She stopped counting.

"You don't understand." Her voice was very small. "It was never the contract. It was my mother's name. Just once, I wanted my father to lift his eyes at that table. Just once."

Then the tears came, all at once, the way rain comes off the sea.

Alex let her cry. He looked out at the black water, very calm, like a man waiting for a bus he knew was coming.

"Grandmother will come out in the rain," he said, "and say please. I'll bet you my jacket."

"You don't have a jacket. I'm wearing it."

"Then I'll bet you the dog."

Something that was almost a laugh broke through her crying. She hit his arm, weakly.

“I don’t want dog.”’

“Then, what do you want?”

"Leave me alone, Alex."

"I can't. You've got my jacket."

Behind them, the great doors of the Grand burst open.

The light poured down the steps, and the coast poured after it. Guests in silk and black ties crowded out under the awning to watch. Down the steps, into the rain, came the Baroness with no cane, holding the rail, and Patricia ran ahead of her, white as her own silk.

The Baroness stopped at the bottom of the steps, out of breath, the rain running off her pearls.

She did not beg. Not yet.

"Get up," she said. "Call Ms. Vale. Now."

Serena did not move.

Patricia reached her first and stood over her, shaking.

“When Grandmother tells you to stand, you get on your feet, you bitch!”

After a long silence, Serena finally spoke. “I don't want this family anymore. Starting today, I am no longer a Tiffany.”

Grandmother Tiffany’s face drained of color, her arrogance vanishing in an instant. If Serena walked out that door, the House of Tiffany would be out on the streets—every last one of them.

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