Mallory
My hand is on the penthouse door handle, the cool brass a stark contrast to my burning skin. I can’t breathe in here. The air is thick with their betrayal, scented with jasmine and lies. I leave the portfolio on the floor, a monument to a dead dream. I don’t look back.
The elevator ride down is a silent, mirrored torture. The woman in the emerald dress looks like me, but her eyes are hollow. The doors slide open to the mezzanine overlooking the ballroom. Below, a sea of tuxedos and jewels glitters under the chandeliers. Laughter rises like expensive champagne bubbles. Hundreds of people, all here to celebrate a fiction.
I spot them immediately. My family. They stand near the grand staircase, a perfect portrait of power. My father, Marcus Greer, looking regal. My mother, Catherine, her smile as polished as the diamonds at her throat. And beside them, Paige and Reid, already descended, holding court. She’s laughing, touching his arm. He is smiling down at her. No one seems to notice I was ever gone.
I descend the staircase, each step a conscious effort. My legs feel like they might give way. The conversations die down as I approach. Heads turn. I feel hundreds of eyes on me.
“Mallory, darling, there you are,” my mother says, her voice a silken thread of warning. “We were just about to start the toasts.”
“There’s been a change of plans,” I say. My voice is quiet, but it cuts through the ambient noise. The string quartet falters.
My father’s eyes narrow. “What is the meaning of this? You’re making a scene.”
“Am I?” I look from him to my mother, then let my gaze land on the couple of the hour. “Or am I just finally seeing the scene for what it is?”
Reid steps forward, his expression a careful mask of concern. “Mallory, are you feeling alright? You look pale.”
“I’ve never felt clearer in my life,” I say, looking directly at him. “Why don’t you tell them, Reid? Tell everyone what you were doing upstairs.”
Paige glides to my side, her touch on my arm both a comfort and a threat. “Sister, you’re not well. The pressure of the engagement, it’s been too much for you.” Her voice is a syrupy performance for the crowd, which has now formed a silent, watchful circle around us.
I shake her off. “Stop calling me that. And stop pretending.” I turn to my parents. “He’s having an affair with her. I saw them. Just now. In the suite.”
A collective gasp ripples through the onlookers. My mother’s smile tightens into a bloodless line. My father’s face is granite.
“That is a monstrous accusation,” my mother says, her voice dangerously low.
“It’s the truth,” I insist, my voice cracking. “Ask them.”
Paige produces a delicate, theatrical tear. “Mother, Daddy, I don’t know why she’s saying these things. I was just helping Reid practice his speech. Mallory has always had such a… vivid imagination. She gets these ideas in her head.”
“An imagination?” I laugh, a sharp, broken sound. “He told me this engagement was a merger. A business deal. He told me I wasn’t strong enough.”
My father steps forward, his presence silencing all other whispers. “Reid is right. You are not strong enough.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I stare at him, uncomprehending. “What?”
“This alliance with the Thorne family is the culmination of a decade of work,” he says, his voice cold and clear, a CEO addressing a failed subordinate. “It secures the Greer legacy for generations. It cannot, and will not, be jeopardized by your emotional instability.”
“So you knew?” I whisper, the horror dawning. “You’re choosing her.”
“There is no choice to be made,” my mother cuts in, her eyes like chips of ice. “Paige is our daughter. She understands what is at stake. She has always put this family first.”
“And what am I?” I ask, the question tearing from my throat.
My father looks at me, and for the first time, I see no trace of affection. Only calculation. He walks to the small stage where the string quartet has fallen silent and picks up the microphone.
“May I have your attention, please,” he booms, his voice amplified throughout the massive ballroom. The silence becomes absolute.
“Tonight was meant to be a celebration of a union between two great families. And it still is.” He pauses, letting the tension build. “But a foundation must be strong. It must be built on truth and loyalty, not sentiment.”
He turns his head and looks directly at me, across the silent room. “Many of you know the story. Years ago, Catherine and I were blessed to take in a young girl who had nothing. We gave her our home. We gave her our name. We treated her as one of our own.”
The careful wording hangs in the air. *Treated her as one of our own.* Not *she is one of our own.* I feel the ground disappear beneath my feet.
“We raised her alongside our daughter, Paige,” he continues. “We gave her every opportunity. Every advantage. In return, we expected one thing: loyalty.”
His gaze is an indictment. “Tonight, that loyalty has been broken. Baseless, hysterical accusations have been made. Accusations designed to sabotage a vital alliance and harm this family’s reputation.”
Reid moves to stand beside Paige, placing a protective arm around her shoulders. She leans into him, her face a perfect mask of wronged innocence.
My mother watches me, her expression unreadable but utterly devoid of warmth.
“This family does not tolerate betrayal,” my father’s voice rings out. “We do not reward weakness. The Greer name is synonymous with strength. And Mallory has proven she does not possess that strength.”
I can’t move. I can’t speak. I am pinned by the weight of a thousand stares.
“Therefore, it is with a heavy heart, but a clear mind, that I must make this announcement.” He takes a breath. “As of this moment, Mallory is no longer a part of our family. The adoption, a gesture of kindness from our past, is now a liability to our future. We are officially and publicly disowning her.”
The words detonate in the silent room. Disowning me. Adoption.
My mind reels. I was adopted? They never told me. It was all a lie. My entire life, a conditional arrangement. A business transaction that has just gone sour.
“She will no longer carry the Greer name,” my father declares. “She is no longer our responsibility. We wish her well in whatever life she chooses for herself.” He places the microphone back on its stand with a decisive click.
He turns his back on me.
The spell is broken. The ballroom erupts in a cacophony of hushed, frantic whispers. I see the pity, the shock, the morbid curiosity on the faces around me. I am a spectacle. A scandal. A nobody.
Two large men in black suits, the hotel’s security, appear at my elbows. Their presence is quiet but unyielding.
“Ma’am, you need to come with us,” one says, his voice polite but firm.
I look past them, searching for one friendly face. I see Paige whispering something in Reid’s ear, a small, triumphant smile playing on her lips. I see my mother straighten her posture, already turning to a guest to smooth things over. I see my father, the man I called Dad my whole life, talking to Reid’s father as if he’d just concluded a difficult but necessary negotiation.
They have already erased me.
The guards gently but inexorably guide me through the crowd. People part like the Red Sea, their eyes following me, their whispers like the hissing of snakes. No one speaks to me. No one meets my eye for more than a second.
They escort me through the opulent lobby, past the fountains and the floral arrangements, and out the grand glass doors. The cold night air hits my bare arms like a slap.
“Your belongings will be sent to an address of your choosing,” the guard says, a rote line he has probably used a hundred times for less dramatic exits.
I have no address.
He releases my arm. The other guard is already speaking into his wrist. The revolving door spins behind me, a final, silent dismissal.
I am standing on the curb of the most luxurious hotel in the city, wearing a thousand-dollar dress and shoes I can barely walk in. My purse is upstairs. My phone. My life. Everything I thought was mine is locked away in a building I can never enter again.
I am nothing. I have nothing.
The city lights blur through the tears that finally, finally begin to fall. I have been cast out. And in the cold, unforgiving silence, I understand. This was not a betrayal. It was a termination. My contract was up.
