SMR 61

~Chapter 61~

The low winter sun slanted through the windows, casting warm light across the cold air, as if trying to melt it.

How long had they sat like that, in quiet waiting, under that pale golden glow?

“Miss Harriet, I want to apologize.”

“Miss Viviana…?”

When Harriet turned around, she saw Viviana biting her lip, her brow furrowed.

“That party where everyone blamed you… the place I stood that day felt strangely familiar. And I realized, you were usually the one standing there. And I… I was one of the people standing across from you, accusing you.”

Harriet didn’t speak.

“I’m really sorry for how I judged you that day without even listening to your side. I just believed everything Bella said, treated you like a terrible person, and spread rumors without even thinking… I… Haah… saying it out loud makes me realize what a horrible person I was.”

Viviana covered her face with both hands, ashamed.

And when she finally lifted her head again to apologize properly—she froze.

Tears shimmered in Harriet’s eyes. The tip of her nose was red.

“Thank you.”

“Huh? But I should be the one apologizing—”

“No one has ever said sorry to me before. All I ever wanted was just one person to say, ‘I’m sorry I misunderstood.’ That’s all I needed…”

Harriet couldn’t hold it in any longer and bowed her head, her shoulders trembling.

Viviana could only stare, stunned.

Since returning from the convent, Harriet had always carried herself with calmness and confidence.

But now—her face was crumpled in emotion, and tears were falling freely.

“I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry, Miss Harriet! For misunderstanding you…”

Viviana kept repeating the one thing Harriet had longed to hear.

It felt shameful to only apologize after experiencing it herself—but there were no other words she could offer.

Harriet wiped her face quickly and looked up again.

“Sorry. I overreacted a bit. It’s not something worth crying over.”

“I don’t know if I have any right to say this,” Viviana said gently, “but… I think I understand why you cried. Let me help you. I’ll tell everyone what Bella’s really like.”

Harriet shook her head.

“Please don’t.”

“I know I wronged you before, but trust me this once. Everyone’s still being fooled by her. I can’t just sit back and do nothing.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just… now isn’t the time.”

Viviana looked confused. She didn’t understand.

Harriet pitied her. Viviana still didn’t know the real Bella—she believed she could take her on directly. But Bella had spent years building her defenses, and a few exposed truths wouldn’t crack them.

“Even if you say it now, no one will believe you. Bella’s a genius at making herself the victim.”

“So we’re just supposed to stay silent and endure it?”

“If that’s all I planned to do, I wouldn’t have returned to Genoa.”

Harriet’s eyes glinted with purpose.

“We have to make Bella take off her mask herself. I think the last party was the beginning. What do you think?”

“The party…?”

Viviana was about to ask what Harriet meant—what moment she was referring to. But then she caught Harriet’s gaze and realized it:

She had already experienced it.

Viviana’s mouth dropped open in shock.

“You… knew I’d break off my friendship with Bella?”

“Of course not. I just hoped Bella would lose her composure and show her true colors. And that someone would be there to see it.”

Viviana began to imagine what might have happened beyond her awareness.

Bella’s cold expression when their eyes met.

Could no one else have seen it?

The way everyone turned on her so suddenly at the party…

Bella pretending to be the victim in that moment—wasn’t there anyone who found that strange?

Viviana wasn’t sure.

But a seed of doubt had clearly been planted. And now, she wasn’t the only one holding it.

“Maybe… maybe I wasn’t the only one who saw that crack in her mask.”

“I’m hoping that’s true. But really, this is just the beginning. Honestly, I never expected anyone—especially someone like you—to take a stand this early.”

But Harriet didn’t feel only relief about it.

If Viviana had truly challenged Bella, there was no way Bella would let it go.

“I’m grateful, but… you should be careful from now on. Bella won’t forgive someone who ‘betrayed’ her.”

“How is that a betrayal?”

“From Bella’s perspective, it is. It’s betrayal. It’s disobedience.”

Bella had worked meticulously to become the most admired young lady in society.

Harriet, to some extent, could even respect that effort.

Because of that, men fell for her charm, and women desperately wanted to be her friend. Bella was known as the golden rose of Genoa for a reason.

But she also had a huge ego. She saw it as a personal offense when one of her friends left her first.

“I know someone who publicly broke ties with Bella first… and was completely ruined because of it. Do you remember Diana McKellar?”

“McKellar? The McKellar count family?”

“That’s right. Their youngest daughter.”

The McKellar family was extremely powerful, running businesses across several nations.

Diana McKellar had once been Harriet’s friend—until Bella drove a wedge between them and took her away.

“Bella cherished her because she had the strongest background of all her friends. But after a subtle rivalry emerged between them, everything changed.”

It started with something trivial.

They had shown up to a party wearing the same dress from a famous designer.

Both wanted the other to change because they didn’t want to match. But no one wants to throw away a pricey dress they bought just to wear once.

Bella won, of course—her dazzling beauty made the dress look better on her.

That could’ve been the end of it—but Bella continued to poke at Diana in subtle ways. She’d “accidentally” say mean things while pretending to talk about someone else or “slip up” with fake concern.

Diana, humiliated and hurt, declared in front of everyone that she was done with Bella.

“Then strange things started happening. The men who used to follow Bella suddenly began chasing after Diana.”

At just sixteen, Diana must have been thrilled.

If you stood far enough back, you’d notice something was off.

But to a girl who had secretly dreamed of that kind of attention, she lacked the clarity to question it.

“She started getting drunk at parties, acting out… maybe she felt like a queen surrounded by admirers. But scandals were inevitable.”

“Oh my god…”

“And when the gossip reached a boiling point, Bella showed up at a party surrounded by all those same men—like nothing had happened. Only Diana was left disgraced.”

Viviana’s eyes widened in horror.

“Are you saying Bella used those men to destroy Diana’s reputation?”

“Bella claimed she didn’t know a thing, of course. But the McKellars quietly sent Diana abroad before her reputation could fall any further. No one’s heard from her since.”

Harriet sighed.

She remembered the day Diana—once her friend—was driven out of the empire, and the chill that crawled up her spine when she overheard Bella laughing with Aston.

“Ugh, so annoying! McKellar sent Diana off to the Kingdom of Candia. I had this whole plan to publicly humiliate her.”

“Didn’t she already get humiliated? She can’t even show her face around Aston anymore.”

“That’s nothing. If I carried out everything I planned, she’d have no choice but to kill herself.”

Even now, Harriet remembered the horror she felt.

A sixteen-year-old girl, plotting a friend’s suicide—using men as tools to do it.

Was she even human?

“Diana had a better family and higher status than Bella, and still ended up destroyed. So what do you think Bella will do to you, someone she sees as ‘beneath’ her?”

Viviana blinked.

“Beneath her? She thinks I’m beneath her?”