15. Brittney #2
“You tried to destroy my marriage for a position you were never qualified to hold.” Shawn’s voice carries across the silent ballroom. “You failed. And now everyone is going to know exactly who you are.”
She looks around one final time. No allies. No escape. No one stepping forward to defend her or offer a graceful exit. She runs.
The crowd parts for her, a sea of designer gowns and tailored suits drawing back from the wreckage of a woman who built herself on lies.
I watch Shawn stand there - jaw tight, hands steady - and something fierce blooms in my chest. He did this.
For me. Not with empty promises or desperate pleas, but with work. With proof. With action.
Elise recovers first. She always does.
“Well.” Her voice is cool, collected, as if her chosen protégé didn’t just flee the room in disgrace. “That was quite the display.”
“It was the truth.” I step forward, drawing attention back to myself. “Something this family hasn’t dealt in for years.”
“You think exposing Mikayla changes anything?” Elise’s smile is brittle. “You’re still the woman who abandoned her vows. Still the social climber who couldn’t handle the pressure of being a Ross.”
“I didn’t leave a good marriage.” My voice carries across the crowd. “I left an empty one. He’s filling it now. With time, not speeches.”
Mom appears behind me - I don’t know when she arrived, but she’s here now, wearing her church dress and an expression that promises violence. The Rowe & Associates team forms a wall at my back. Helena steps forward, silver hair gleaming under the chandeliers.
“You’re harassing my architect in the middle of a room full of my clients.” Helena’s voice could freeze champagne. “Leave. Or we test whether the sprinklers work on designer heels.”
Elise doesn’t flinch. But something shifts behind her eyes - the calculation of a woman reassessing the battlefield.
“You think this is over?” Her voice goes ice-cold. “I told Helena what would happen if she kept you on staff. The Brennan account withdrew this morning. The Westfield project is under review. Your little firm is going to learn what it costs to stand against this family.”
My stomach drops. The clients actually pulled out. Real money. Real consequences. Because of me.
Helena steps forward. “I’ve fired better clients for worse reasons.” Her eyes are steel. “Brittney stays. The firm survives. And you, Mrs. Ross, can take your threats somewhere they’ll actually land.”
I look at Helena. At Fern. At the team that formed a wall behind me without being asked. People are sacrificing for me. Real things. Real money. Real risk. I’m worth fighting for, I think. And for the first time in my life, I actually believe it.
Elise turns and walks away. The crowd parts for her, whispers following in her wake.
I find the balcony afterward. The cold air hits my bare shoulders like a blessing. Below, the city sparkles - millions of lights, millions of lives, none of them caring about the drama that just played out in the ballroom behind me.
My hands are shaking. Classic delayed reaction.
I’ve been steady all night, armored in red silk and righteous anger, and now that the battle’s over, my body is catching up to what my mind already knows.
I just won. I won, and people saw me win, and Mikayla is gone and Elise is retreating and everything I’ve been fighting for is finally, finally-
“Hey.”
Shawn’s voice is soft. He appears beside me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him through his suit jacket.
“That was-” he starts.
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “If you tell me how proud you are, I’m going to-”
He kisses me.
Not gentle. Not asking. His hands cup my face and his mouth covers mine and all that wanting crashes together in a single moment - years of silence and months of rebuilding and the fierce, desperate relief of finally being chosen.
I kiss him back. God help me, I kiss him back.
I fist my hands in his shirt and pull him closer and make a sound I’ve never made before - desperate and relieved and furious all at once.
His tongue slides against mine. His hands tangle in my hair.
The cold balcony air wraps around us but I’m burning, burning, burning.
Then I shove him away.
We stand there, breathing hard, staring at each other.
“We said not until after tonight,” I say.
“You said. I never agreed.”
His mouth is red from mine. He looks like a man who would absolutely let it happen again, any time I wanted, and we both know it.
“I hate you,” I say.
“No, you don’t.”
I don’t.
We walk back into the ballroom together, not touching, but closer than we’ve been in months. The crowd has dispersed into smaller clusters, the drama of the evening becoming fodder for tomorrow’s gossip columns.
My phone buzzes. I pull it from my clutch, expecting Helena, expecting Fern, expecting Mom wanting to know if I need a ride home. It’s a link. Anonymous sender. I click it.
A video fills the screen. Mikayla, shot from an odd angle - hidden camera, probably, tucked somewhere she didn’t think to check. She’s talking to someone off-frame, her voice sharp with frustration.
“If she doesn’t back off, I’ll release everything. The photos. The edited audio. The paper trail I’ve been building. By the time I’m done, she’ll look like the gold-digger who destroyed America’s favorite family.” She pauses, adjusts her hair. “Shawn will have no choice but to-”
The video cuts off.
I stare at the screen. Someone sent me this deliberately.
Someone wanted me to see Mikayla’s threat - and wanted me to know they had access to it.
But Mikayla is already destroyed. The Oxford revelation just happened.
She fled the ballroom in disgrace. So why send this now?
Why reveal that someone was watching her, recording her, waiting for the right moment?
Unless the point isn’t Mikayla at all. Unless the point is to remind me that someone else has been pulling strings this entire time.
I look up at Shawn. His brow furrows as he reads my expression.
“What is it?”
I show him the phone.
The question hangs between us, unanswered and unanswerable: Who sent it, and why now that she’s already destroyed?