AT MY STEPSISTER’S 500-GUEST WEDDING, THE FAMILY WHO THREW ME OUT AT 16 LEFT ME STANDING IN THE BACK LIKE I DIDN’T EXIST—UNTIL THE BRIDE SLAPPED ME AND CALLED ME GARBAGE WHILE PEOPLE LAUGHED. I DIDN’T FIGHT BACK. I JUST STOOD THERE… LETTING HER THINK I WAS STILL THAT HELPLESS GIRL. THEN HER FIANCÉ STEPPED IN, STARED AT ME, AND ASKED ONE QUESTION THAT SILENCED THE ROOM: “DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO SHE IS?”

Over six months, we had negotiated, disagreed, renegotiated, and eventually signed a deal worth enough that his father began referring to me as “that terrifyingly competent woman from Vance” with what I suspect was admiration disguised as complaint.

What I did not know—not until the cream-and-gold wedding invitation arrived at my apartment three months before the ceremony—was that Julian Mercer was engaged to Bianca Hale.

I stared at the envelope for a full minute before opening it.

The card stock was thick enough to imply virtue. Bianca had always loved expensive paper. There was no note inside. No explanation. Just the formal invitation, her name printed beside his, the venue, the date, the embossed monogram she’d no doubt spent weeks selecting.

I almost laughed.

For ten years, no one in that family had called on holidays, on birthdays, after business profiles started appearing with my name in them, after industry magazines ran interviews, after Vance Global became large enough that even people who didn’t understand what we did recognized the name. My father had not written once. Diane had not apologized. Bianca had not acknowledged my existence.

Then suddenly, there was an invitation.