My Sister Got Pregnant by My Fiancé, but Mom Still Demanded I Walk Down the Aisle—Until I Exposed the $6,400 She Secretly Took from My Wedding Fund to Protect Them...

Reid slowly pushed himself up from his chair.

His eyes were bloodshot, his face gray. He walked over to me, stopping three feet away, not daring to reach out.

"Brooke," he whispered. "I know... I know there's nothing I can say to fix this. But please... tell me what I can do to make it right. I'll pay back the sixty-four hundred dollars. I'll pay double. Just... don't let my father disown me. If your dad pulls out of the venture, my father will cut me off completely."

I took off my engagement ring.

The two-carat platinum diamond sparkled under the chandelier light. It was heavy. It was expensive. And it felt like a chunk of lead.

I dropped it into Reid’s breast pocket.

"You should have thought about your father's partnership before you unzipped your pants in my sister's apartment," I said. "You wanted Sloane? You have her now. Good luck raising a child on whatever salary you can earn without your father's name."

Reid stared at me, his lip trembling, before he slowly turned toward Sloane.

Sloane looked up at him through her swollen, tear-stained eyes. There was no love between them. No romantic tragedy. Just two selfish, broken people who had used each other to fill an empty void, now tethered together by a baby neither of them was equipped to care for.

"Get out, Reid," Arthur said.

Reid didn't argue. He turned and shuffled out of the ballroom like an old man, his shoulders slumped, his life reduced to rubble.

Sloane remained in her chair.

"Brooke..." Sloane whispered, reaching out a trembling hand toward me. "Brooke, please... I have nowhere to go. Mom's hotel won't let me in without a card. I don't have any money left."

I looked down at my sister.

The anger that had propelled me through the last twenty-four hours was beginning to recede, leaving behind an exhausting, hollow ache. But there was no pity left in me. She had made her choices with cold, calculated entitlement.

"You have the apartment," I said. "The rent is paid through the end of the month. After that, you need to find a job that pays more than nine hundred dollars a week. And you need to hire an attorney to establish Reid's paternity child support."

"Are you... are you abandoning me?" she sobbed.

"You abandoned me in July, Sloane," I said. "Now you get to grow up."

I turned away from her and looked at my father.

Arthur looked exhausted, but his posture was straight. He walked over to me, wrapped his thick arms around my shoulders, and pulled me into his chest. I buried my face into his lapel, and for the first time since opening that email on Wednesday afternoon, I let myself cry.