Chapter 16 - The Gala of the Century
Two months after the hostile takeover of Vance & Sterling, the annual tech and innovation gala was held at the exact same luxury estate in Vermont where my brother’s wedding had turned into a catastrophic dumpster fire.
The irony was delicious.
This time, I wasn't smuggled into the back of the room, wearing a dress chosen to satisfy someone else's aesthetic, hiding beside the kitchen doors and coloring dragons for preschoolers.
I arrived in a custom-tailored, midnight-blue silk gown that commanded every eye in the room the moment the grand doors swung open. On my arm walked Emmett Stewart, his expression relaxed and genuinely happy.
The moment we stepped into the ballroom, the collective murmur of the crowd shifted. Dozens of the most powerful executives, venture capitalists, and tech innovators in the world immediately turned, raised their champagne flutes, and applauded. Not for Emmett. For me.
I walked down the central aisle—the exact path where Nicholas had once told me, “Don't stand in the entrance, that's where the people who actually matter are going to walk through.”
Now, I was the person who mattered most.
My parents and Nicholas weren't invited, of course. Though I heard through the grapevine that Nicholas was now living in a tiny studio apartment above a laundromat in Albany, working night shifts as a data entry clerk, desperately scrolling through LinkedIn to watch my face grace the cover of Forbes magazine.
Emmett led me to the head table—the absolute center of the room, right beneath the glittering crystal chandeliers.
“How’s the view from up here?” Emmett whispered, leaning down close to my ear, his hand resting lightly on the small of my back.
May you like
I looked out over the glittering ballroom, taking in the sea of brilliant minds, the genuine respect in the room, and the absolute freedom of a life I had built entirely on my own terms.
“It beats the kids' table by a landslide,” I smiled.
