Part 2Thirty Years of Ash

The room drew breath as one, and every eye came to me.

No one could believe a jumped-up property developer would take on the Aldrich daughter in public.

Offense hardened into anger on her face.

She looked me over, and every word came out cold.

"You're the first person in this circle with the nerve to deny my family its due."

My expression didn't move. Nothing about her frightened me.

"A bidding floor measures what you can pay, not who your people are.

"Your family, your standing..."

I shook my head.

"None of it enters into my thinking."

Something vicious moved behind her eyes as she stared at me.

No one had ever cornered her in front of an audience before.

She knew the Aldrich family had deep political roots and serious money behind it.

What they could put on a table clean, liquid, and unquestioned was another matter entirely.

I was different, and everyone knew it. New money.

Cash on hand, clean provenance, nothing to explain to anyone.

Camille's mouth pulled into a cold smile.

"Fine. That's just fine.

"You wait."

Warren had gone bloodless beside me, every muscle locked.

"Daphne, this is reckless."

He said it the way you speak to someone you've given up on.

"If you're set on making an enemy of the Aldriches, every deal between us is dead as of today.

"My company doesn't stay tied to a liability."

I didn't so much as look up.

"Suit yourself."

In the middle of the standoff, Nathaniel Voss took an urgent call.

He listened, and his face turned grave as he addressed the room.

"An unlimited bid has been placed, which requires the house to verify funds on the spot.

"It will take a few minutes. Thank you for your patience."

The guests accepted it. Nobody questioned anything.

Only I knew it for what it was. The Aldriches were buying time.

My holdings and account records had cleared verification before I ever walked through the door.

I nodded anyway, calm.

"Go ahead."

In a private lounge, the door opened quietly.

Warren came in first, bent nearly double with deference, showing a middle-aged man through ahead of him.

"Daphne, this is Miss Aldrich's father. I'll leave the two of you to talk."

I looked up. I knew who he was better than anyone in the building.

Sebastian Aldrich, the man who steered the family.

He was past fifty, straight-backed, settled in himself.

Nothing like the charming reprobate who'd chased anything that moved thirty years earlier.

Back then he'd gone after my sister for one reason: to punish the girl he'd grown up with.

Without that, none of what followed would have happened.

My sister would still be our parents' pride and the person I measured myself against.

She'd have been the first person from our town to finish college.

She'd have carried everyone's hopes into a good life.

"Ms. Sutter. Your reputation precedes you."

Sebastian's voice was even, warmed by a deliberate sort of approachability.

"My daughter is young and headstrong. Someone set her up and photographed her, and now she's in a humiliating position.

"She's just a girl. All she wants is to keep her name and keep those pictures private."

He paused, and the pain that surfaced in his eyes didn't look manufactured.

"Everyone becomes a parent sooner or later.

"Put yourself in my place. If it were your child being humiliated like this, wouldn't it break your heart?

"Show mercy where you can afford to. There's no need to finish her off."

Then he slid a document across to me.

The development permit for Harborstrand. I'd spent months failing to get it.

Its value was past calculating.

I pushed the hatred down and let out a small laugh.

"Put myself in your place?

"You love your daughter, I don't doubt it. But all these years, the girls and the families your household destroyed, did you ever once put yourself in theirs?"

Sebastian's face closed.

He leaned back in his chair and looked down at me.

The reasonable man evaporated, and what was underneath came through: mean, and false.

"A woman doesn't build what you've built without a few of the usual dirty methods.

"You sold what you had and now you want the halo too. I've offered you a way out. Don't be too stupid to take it."

I looked at Sebastian without flinching.

This was the real face.

He could put on decency, but the arrogance was bone-deep, and it always shows.

The same way it had thirty years earlier, when the pictures got out.

A man that high-born still sat at a keyboard seeding filth about her across every forum he could find, because she'd turned him down.

I closed my hand into a fist and smiled.

"Are you finished?

"The auction's about to resume, and I need to get back."

A few threats were never going to make me fold.

If they had, I'd have failed my parents, and I'd have failed my sister most of all.

I wanted those people to taste ruin themselves.

Sebastian shot to his feet and slammed the door on his way out.

"You had your chance to do this the easy way. We'll see how you like the other one."

The sound of it rang in my ears.

I was shaking.

Not from fear.

From anticipation.

I'd waited thirty full years for this.