Darcy
The ballroom doors swing shut behind me, muffling the explosion of noise. I don't slow down. My heels click a sharp, angry rhythm on the marble floor of the corridor. FHollowayom tastes like the metallic tang of adrenaline in the back of my throat.
A hand clamps down on my arm, hard. I'm spun around, slammed back against the cold wall. Julian.
His face is a mask of white-hot fury, the charming veneer from the stage completely gone. His eyes, which I once thought were so handsome, are just chips of ice.
“What in the hell was that?” he snarls, his voice low and vicious. “You have five seconds to tell me this is some kind of sick joke before I drag you back out there.”
I just look at him. The grip on my arm is bruising, but I feel nothing. The pain is a distant echo from a life that is no longer mine.
“Let go of me, Julian.”
“You humiliated me,” he hisses, tightening his grip. “You humiliated my family. After everything we’ve done for you, for your pathetic little workshop. Is this how you repay us?”
“Repay you?” I laugh, a short, bitter sound. “You mean by letting you absorb my family’s legacy for pennies on the dollar? By letting you parade me around like a prize you’d won?”
His jaw clenches. “We had an agreement. Our families had an agreement. You belong with me.”
“No,” I say, my voice as cold as his eyes. “I belong to myself. The agreement is off.”
“You have nothing without me, Darcy! Your grandfather is a sick old man and his business is a relic. It’s worthless. I was saving you.”
Every word is a confirmation. Every insult is a brick in the foundation of my new resolve. He saw me as a charity case. A broken thing to be fixed and owned.
“I don’t need saving,” I say, pulling my arm from his grasp. He is so shocked by the sudden move that he lets me.
“I’m going to ruin you,” he whispers, the threat hanging in the air between us. “I’ll make sure you never design another piece of jewelry in this city again.”
“You can try.”
I turn to walk away, but my path is blocked by my parents. My mother’s face is pale, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and confusion. My father stands beside her, his expression grim, his hand resting protectively on her arm.
“Darcy, darling,” my mother breathes, rushing forward to take my hands. They are trembling. “What happened? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Mother. More than fine.”
My father looks from me to Julian, who is still standing there, radiating impotent rage. “Julian,” my father says, his voice dangerously level. “You will not speak to my daughter that way. Ever again.”
Julian scoffs, straightening his jacket, the mask of arrogance slipping back into place. “Your daughter has just made the biggest mistake of her life, Mr. Holloway. You would be wise to remember which family holds all the cards here.”
He turns and strides back toward the ballroom, leaving a trail of frigid silence in his wake.
“What have you done?” my father asks me, but there is no anger in his voice. Only deep, profound worry.
“I’ve taken our name back, Father,” I say, meeting his gaze. “It’s time we remembered what it means to be a Holloway.”
He searches my face for a long moment, then gives a slow, single nod. “Alright, then. Let’s go home.”
The drive is silent. My parents don’t press me for details, for which I am grateful. The memories of my other life are still too raw, too close to the surface. Explaining them is impossible. All I can do is act.
Instead of our small house, I ask the driver to take us to the workshop. It’s in the oldest part of the city, a district of cobblestone streets and forgotten artisans.
When we pull up, the building looks even sadder than I remember. The paint on the sign, ‘Holloway & Son Artisans,’ is faded and peeling. The windows are dark, save for a single, warm light glowing from the back room.
“He’s still here,” I whisper.
Inside, the air smells of my childhood: beeswax, metal polish, and the faint, sweet scent of my grandfather’s pipe tobacco. Dust motes dance in the slivers of moonlight cutting through the grimy windows. Workbenches are littered with tools, half-finished pieces, and overdue invoices.
The place is dying.
I walk toward the light in the back, my parents following quietly. I push open the door to my grandfather’s private studio.
He is sitting at his bench, hunched over a delicate filigree brooch, his hands gnarled with arthritis but still impossibly steady. A wheezing cough racks his thin frame, and he sets the piece down, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Grandfather,” I say softly.
He looks up, and his tired blue eyes light up when he sees me. “Darcy. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”
He gestures to my dress, the diamonds, the whole facade of the life I just shattered.
“I’m not marrying him,” I say, walking over to his side. I pick up a worn pair of calipers from his desk. The cool, familiar weight of it settles in my palm. It feels more real than the diamond ring Julian was expecting me to offer.
My grandfather studies my face, his gaze wise and knowing. He doesn't seem surprised. “I see.”
A small, dry smile touches his lips. “I never liked him. His hands are too soft. He’s never made anything in his life.”
“The workshop…” I look around at the stacks of unpaid bills on a nearby spindle. “How bad is it?”
He sighs, the sound heavy with the weight of decades of struggle. “The Vances were going to absorb our debt. It was part of the… arrangement. Now?” He shrugs, a gesture of defeat that breaks my heart. “We have maybe a month. If we’re lucky.”
My mother lets out a small sob, and my father puts his arm around her. This is the reality Julian was so sure I couldn’t face. Bankruptcy. The end of a century-old legacy.
In my first life, I let it happen. I let Julian’s family gut this place, sell off the tools, and turn my grandfather’s studio into storage space. I traded this heritage for a gilded cage.
I look at my grandfather, his frail body a testament to a life spent creating beauty. I look at my hands. These hands designed a necklace that won the highest accolades in the world, even if someone else’s name was on it.
That knowledge is a fire in my veins.
“No,” I say, my voice ringing with a certainty that makes my own parents look at me with fresh eyes. “It’s not over.”
I turn back to my grandfather, my heart filled with an urgent, desperate purpose. “It’s not over. I won’t let it be.”
He looks at me, a flicker of the old fire returning to his eyes. “What are you going to do, little star?”
I pick up a sketchpad from a dusty shelf, the paper crisp and new. I grab a charcoal pencil.
“I’m going to save us,” I declare, looking at the three people I love most in this world. “I’m going to save it all.”
