Chapter 2

Just before the gala began, Lydia arrived late.

She wore a couture gold gown worth roughly half a year of Julian's salary. My mother went to help her out of her coat. My father asked if she had been cold on the way. No one asked why I was so pale.

Lydia saw the script in my hand and understood everything at once.

"Evelyn, I don't want your hotel," she said, even as she slipped her hand through my mother's arm. "Julian would feel humiliated."

"Then don't take it," I said.

Her smile froze.

My mother glared at me at once. "Evelyn, she's only thinking of your feelings."

"So am I." Lydia's eyes reddened. "I know Evelyn's always minded that Julian met her first. Now that my life is hard, she must be delighted."

I looked at her. Three years of marriage hadn't matured her. It had only taught her to turn every disappointment into someone else's crime.

Julian came in behind her, looking worn out. He said quietly, "I didn't know about the hotel. We won't take it."

Lydia spun around. "Of course you don't want it. You'd rather have me live in your thousand-square-foot apartment than admit you can't support me!"

Nearby guests were already looking.

My mother hurried to hold her, as if she were still the little girl who had lost her doll. My father turned his anger on Julian instead. "Letting your wife lose her composure in public is your failure."

Julian's face went cold by degrees.

It struck me suddenly that what Lydia had won wasn't a man who would look up at her forever, but an ordinary person with pride, burdens, and his own exhaustion. She had wanted the trophy that comes after victory, and found a living human being standing in her marriage instead.

When the gala began, I went to my assigned seat at the left of the head table. My place card was gone.

The butler explained in a low voice that Lydia had said it was her first family banquet since the wedding and she wanted to sit beside our father. So my mother had my seat moved to the foot of the table, near the kitchen door.

"You'll be going up on stage soon anyway," she said.

I stood where I was and suddenly remembered the year I turned twenty-four. My father let me chair the shareholder briefing for the first time, and I prepared for two full months. On the day of the meeting, Lydia's boyfriend broke up with her, and my mother made me stay home to keep her company. When the directors later asked why I had been absent, my father said in front of everyone, "How can someone who can't even manage her time manage a company?"

I explained. My father only said that an heir shouldn't shift blame.

No one asked who had made me stay.

I sat down at the foot of the table. The food was already cold, and waiters kept passing behind me. On stage, my mother played photographs of Lydia's wedding and called her "the freest and bravest daughter of the Ashford family" for all to hear.

When my turn came to speak, the lights dimmed.

I walked up and set the deed of gift on the podium.

"For the past eight years, I have been trained to become the next head of the Ashford family. I've run the hotel, restructured the foundation, and abided by every decision the family made for me."

My father gave a small nod. He thought I had finally learned to obey.

"My family told me that as the heir, I should shoulder more and ask for less. Because one day, the whole family would belong to me."

Lydia sat up straight, waiting for me to say the hotel's name.

Instead, I took another document out of my clutch.

"Under the Ashford succession trust my grandfather established, I must sign a management commitment before I turn thirty in order to receive the controlling interest. Tonight, I formally decline to sign, and I resign as executive vice president of the group, as a trustee of the foundation, and as a director of the Harbor Hotel."

The ballroom was so quiet you could hear the waves.

"I also renounce all future interest in the trust. By order of succession, Lydia becomes the sole beneficiary."

My father shot to his feet. "Evelyn, get down from there."

It was the first time he had ever forgotten to keep up appearances in public.

I looked at him and said it one word at a time. "You always told me I'd have everything someday, so it didn't matter what I lost now. Then I won't have that someday.

"I won't sign the transfer of the Harbor Hotel. It will be sold according to my grandmother's will, and the proceeds will go to the women's shelter she supported in her lifetime. That is my last decision as its current owner."

Lydia's face went white. "You'd rather give it away than give it to me?"

I answered calmly. "Yes."

"Then what about me?" she blurted. "What am I supposed to do?"

What a familiar question.

She had asked it when she wanted my gown, when she wanted Julian, when she wanted my graduation trip, my grandmother's brooch, the hotel suite.

No one had ever asked what I was supposed to do.

I closed the folder.

"From now on, that isn't my problem."