Chapter 3

Claire Hayes POV

Ethan Grant looked as if he had heard a joke.

“What did you say?”

I threw the torn-off cover into the trash.

“I said the engagement is canceled.”

The staff in the banquet hall were all stunned.

Several Grant relatives’ expressions changed, and someone immediately lowered their voice to advise Ethan Grant.

“Ethan, don’t let this blow up.”

“The Hayes family hasn’t arrived yet.”

But Ethan Grant was angered by my attitude.

“Claire Hayes, the engagement is not something you can decide on your own.”

Ethan Grant lowered his voice.

“Apologize to Lily now, and I can pretend this never happened.”

I asked back, “She used my name to shoot my engagement materials, and I’m supposed to apologize to her?”

Lily Carter sobbed and said, “I really didn’t know the main screen was supposed to use your name.”

“Ethan only said there would be a test shoot tonight, and I thought it was a sample prepared by the hotel.”

What an interesting thing to say.

I looked at her.

“You didn’t know?”

“The corner of the tulip main image draft has my name on it, and the framed border even has a signature card for me.”

“Did you not see it before you started shooting, Miss Carter?”

Lily Carter’s face turned slightly pale.

But Ethan Grant grew impatient.

“She doesn’t understand details like that.”

“Claire Hayes, you keep clinging to one image, and it makes you look petty.”

“Petty?” I nodded.

“Then the Grant family’s engagement really isn’t worth much.”

Ethan Grant stepped forward and reached out to grab my wrist.

I avoided him.

“Don’t touch me.”

Lily Carter suddenly cried out, and her entire body fell backward, knocking over a glass of red wine, and the deep red liquid splashed across the draft of the tulip main image.

“Claire, if you didn’t want me to shoot, I could have taken it down, so why did you push me?”

She clutched her wrist, and tears came the moment she wanted them.

I looked at that red wine stain, and my gaze turned completely cold.

This tulip main image was my mother’s heartfelt gift to me, yet it was not enough for Lily Carter to take it away, and she had to destroy it with her own hands too.

Ethan Grant held Lily Carter and could not suppress his anger.

“Claire Hayes, you’ve gone too far!”

“Mr. Grant.”

A calm male voice came from the doorway.

“There are surveillance cameras here, so do you want to see what happened clearly before you scold her?”

I turned around.

Adrian Lawson stood by the door, with the Hayes family’s legal team behind him.

He had his coat draped over his arm, and when his gaze landed on the stained tulip main image draft, his expression also turned cold.

“Miss Hayes, Ms. Hayes is on her way,” he said.

“She asked me to come pick you up first.”

Someone in the banquet hall whispered, “Ms. Hayes?”

“Which Ms. Hayes?”

Adrian Lawson did not answer and only walked to my side.

“Are you all right?”

I shook my head.

“I’m fine.”

“The main visual draft is not.”

Ethan Grant frowned.

“And who are you?”

Adrian Lawson looked at him, his tone so polite it was almost sharp.

“Miss Hayes’s legal counsel.”

“All future correspondence between the Grant family and Miss Hayes regarding this engagement must run through me exclusively.”

Adrian Lawson’s arrival was not exactly sudden.

On the day I returned to New York, Vivian Hayes had given me his contact information, saying that the situation in New York was complicated, and if I encountered anything that made me uncomfortable, I could contact Adrian Lawson first.

At the time, I even laughed at my mother for being too cautious.

Only now did I realize my mother did not distrust the Grant family, but understood human nature too well.

Adrian Lawson did not rush in like a hero saving the day and argue on my behalf.

He first confirmed whether I was hurt, then had his assistant secure the surveillance footage and the main visual modification records.

Every step was steady, so steady that Ethan Grant could not find a gap to gloss things over with the word “misunderstanding.”

I looked at the document envelope he handed me, and the fire in my heart calmed instead.

Anger could make me turn away, but evidence could make the other side shut up.

Ethan Grant stared at Adrian Lawson, his tone carrying a warning.

“Claire Hayes is my fiancée, and her affairs do not need an outsider’s involvement.”

Adrian Lawson was not provoked.

“The engagement has not been completed, and the engagement contract has not taken effect.”

“Even if we take a step back and say the engagement contract had taken effect, that still would not mean Miss Hayes had lost the right to independently retain counsel.”

His words were too calm, so calm that they made Ethan Grant even more embarrassed.

I looked at Ethan Grant.

“See, even my hiring a lawyer feels offensive to you.”

“How could I dare marry someone like that?”

For a moment, Ethan Grant was speechless.

Lily Carter still wanted to cry, but Adrian Lawson had already asked his assistant to pull up the surveillance screenshot of the moment she stepped back and knocked over the wineglass.

The footage froze on the second her foot moved backward on its own, and all her grievances looked ridiculous.