Chapter 6 The Sterling Standard
SIX
The Sterling Standard
April
The doors of the executive elevator opened with the kind of silence that cost extra, and Liam Sterling stepped into the executive suite like a man who'd never needed to announce himself in his life.
If Chad were a car, he'd be a Tesla. White, with vanity plates reading VP-MKT. The kind that made a lot of noise about being quiet, that promised the world but might still go up in a fiery explosion on the freeway.
Liam Sterling was a 1961 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud. The kind of vehicle that didn't need to announce itself because everyone already knew its legacy.
Liam had expected the usual mid-afternoon theater: people pretending to work, Chad pretending to matter, April pretending she was fine.
Instead, he walked into a bullpen that looked like the aftermath of a royal wedding. Lobster shells in trash cans. Champagne flutes abandoned on desks like evidence.
April was at her desk staring at her spreadsheet with the serene focus of a woman watching a slow-motion car crash she had personally scheduled.
On her left hand, the Blackwood heirloom diamond threw hard flashes of light every time she moved her mouse.
Liam's gaze locked on it immediately.
A rare crack appeared in his polished veneer. He looked at the ring. Then at the executive offices. Then back at April. Sharp amusement crossed his features.
"Oh."
"I came here to give Chad a watch so he wouldn't look like a total failure on your anniversary," Liam said, tossing the gift onto a nearby desk.
“The one he gave you is fake.” The silver box hit like the ding of canceled Outlook meeting nobody bothered to delete.
From inside his glass office, Chad's head snapped up.
"Liam!" Chad scrambled out from behind his desk, relief flooding his face like a drowning man spotting shore. "Liam, man—thank God you're here—"
Liam walked past him like he was furniture.
He stopped in front of April, his attention dropping to her left hand.
"Killian has always had excellent taste in acquisitions." Then he gave her a sidelong glance. April wasn’t sure how sure how but she knew he knew it was all completely fake.
Behind them, Chad called out, voice climbing. "Liam! Killian's gone crazy! He thinks they're engaged!"
Liam's attention didn't waver from April's face.
"Tell them she's mine!" Chad's voice cracked. "She was at family dinner last week—I didn't make it, but she told me she went—you were there, you saw—"
Nothing. Not even a flicker of acknowledgment.
Chad's eyes cut to April with the same desperate expectation he'd shown at lunch when Mateo handed him kale.
She was looking at Liam, listening to Liam, her attention completely elsewhere without even a glance in Chad's direction.
"As you know," Liam said mildly, "I'm on the board at the Sterling Gala tonight. It's the most exclusive event in the city."
Chad popped up on that sentence like it was a life raft. "Yeah. And don't even think about trying to get on the list," he snapped at April. "I've been on the waiting list five years. It's very exclusive." His eyes darted to Liam, waiting for backup.
Liam's eyebrow quirked at April. A small, deliberate invitation.
A serve.
April kept her face neutral. Inside, the decision clicked. Agency wasn’t as hard to claim as she’d expected.
Time to volley.
"Put me on the list," she said simply.
Chad made a strangled sound and snapped his head toward Liam. He looked lost, like a man who'd shown up to the match late, still searching for his racket.
Liam’s gaze stayed on April.
“Come as my guest,” he said.
Point.
April didn't look at Chad. She didn't have to. She could feel it shift behind her. The silence, the slack-jawed realization. The game was happening around him. He wasn’t benched. He was never even invited.
Liam pulled a gold-edged invitation from his pocket. When April reached for it, his knuckles grazed the back of her hand. Liam went still — not frozen, not dramatic, just a brief absence of motion, like a man who'd been mid-sentence and lost the word. His fingers curled once against his palm.
Chad surged forward, face tight with anger he couldn't afford to show too loudly. “You’ve made your point,” Chad snapped, forcing calm. “Now let’s end this before it gets worse.”
He looked at Liam. Waited. Liam adjusted his cuffs.
A courier in a company polo stepped into the edge of the bullpen, bouquet in hand.
"Delivery for April Feuller?"
Heads lifted. Phones paused mid-scroll. Even Jessica from Finance stopped pretending to read.
The courier glanced down at the card. "From… Killian Blackwood."
April hadn't expected anything. Largely due to the fact that their engagement was fake and he still hadn’t responded to her meeting invite. But if she had pictured fiancé flowers in her head, it would’ve been red roses. Impeccable. Expensive. A statement designed for witnesses.
This wasn’t that.
Sweet peas and ranunculus; soft and wild, gathered like someone had picked the prettiest pieces of joy and didn’t care if it looked symmetrical.
She took the card. Read it. The phantom sensation of a forehead pressing against hers in a crowded bullpen.
Chad stared at the bouquet like it had personally insulted him. "Oh my God," he hissed, stepping closer, voice low but angry enough to carry. "Stop making a spectacle."
"No. You don't get to call it a prank and make me the crazy one. You cheated." She turned back to her screen like he’d already been filed under Resolved.
Chad waited for her to explain, to soften it, to give him anything he could work with.
Nothing came.
"This is obviously fake," he snapped, eyes darting to Liam for rescue. “You’re both—this is—” His voice was climbing now, frustration bleeding into anger. He swallowed hard. “I’m not going to overreact to this. When you’re done playing games—and you’ve calmed down—call me.”
Arthur appeared in the doorway. Unrushed. Undramatic. Inevitable.
“Sterling.”
“What—” Chad snapped. He’d wasted so much time trying to manage April, he forgot someone had been managing him.
By the time he reacted, Arthur was already beside April's desk. Presence immovable, options reduced. He glanced at her screen. The bottleneck map was still up: red cells, dependency arrows, the summary box screaming single point of failure.
“Send that to me,” he said.
April looked up. "It's just a—"
"April." His tone was final. "Send it."
She nodded slowly.
Arthur turned back to Chad. "Sterling." The single word landed like a gavel. Chad stumbled backward into his glass office like a man being escorted off a stage.
April set the card down carefully, then leaned toward Liam enough to make what she said next private, even in a room made of glass.
“I felt like a laughingstock this morning, standing in a supply closet, holding a cupcake, realizing I’d been the punchline.” Her fingers tightened on the edge of her desk. “I want him to walk into a room and feel that. That moment when you realize you don’t belong. That you never did.”
She met his eyes. "Could Chad get an invitation too? Something real-looking. Something he can't refuse."
Liam didn’t need her to explain. He caught the subtext instantly.
“Are you asking me,” he said, voice still low and private, “to make sure my brother has an unpleasant evening?”
"I want him to show up believing he belongs—and have the room disagree."
"You want him admitted," Liam murmured, "so he can be rejected."
"Yes."
He studied her for a long moment, deciding, and his mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"I have an idea," he said. Liam acknowledged his brother's existence the way you'd notice a change in the weather. His smile was saccharine as he raised his voice. "You'll be at the gala tonight."
From inside the glass office, Chad's head lifted. He exhaled like he’d been underwater. “Yes. Thank God. Liam, you have no idea—”
“But you can’t go looking like that.” Liam gestured vaguely at Chad’s crumpled state. “Four o’clock. Couture Magnifique. I’ve arranged a private styling appointment.”
His smile was all polish. “They’ll make sure you’re properly dressed.”
Chad’s face lit up like Christmas morning. “You—really?”
“Of course.” Liam adjusted his cuffs. “I know you have nothing appropriate to wear.”
April thought, not without cruelty, that Chad was a Sterling the way an outlet mall suit was designer. Same name on the label, but marked final sale for a reason everyone could see and no one mentioned at family dinners.
Arthur’s clipboard clicked. “November 8th,” he rumbled from the doorway. “Subscription charges. Netflix. Hulu. Disney Plus. HBO Max. Submitted as ‘market research.’ Please provide documentation on how these relate to marketing strategy.”
Chad's smile faltered. "That's—those are—"
"I'll wait," Arthur said.
Liam turned back to April. “I’ve arranged a fitting for you as well.” He held out his hand. “Shall we? I have a car waiting.”
April tracked the room in quick snapshots: the invitation in her pocket. The flowers bright and defiant on her desk. Chad behind the glass, drowning in his own reflection.
April pushed herself up from her desk. "Let's go."
Liam offered his arm. She took it, and his hand settled over hers with proprietary confidence guaranteed to become office gossip before the elevator doors even closed.
Brenda stepped into their path. Her eyes flicked to Liam's arm, to April's hand resting on it, to the ring catching the light, then snapped back to April with a twisted mouth.
"Wow. That was fast. Guess you didn't need Chad after all." Her voice was crisp with HR authority and something bruised underneath.
April didn't slow. “I didn’t do anything to you, Brenda.”
Brenda’s nostrils flared. “You humiliated me. Everyone’s looking at me. They’re already talking.”
The facts had already sorted themselves: Brenda touched Chad. Brenda got rejected. The office turned it into data within minutes. Slack moved fast.
April didn’t raise her voice. “No,” she said. “You did this. People saw you.”
Liam guided April forward, and the elevator doors slid shut with expensive silence.
Behind them, Chad stood at his desk, staring at the space where his salvation had just walked away with his ex-girlfriend.
Arthur flipped another page on his clipboard.
“December 2nd,” he said. “Coffee. Again.”
Chad tried to speak. “Wait—”
But he was already trapped. Stuck at his desk with his kale and his cursed email signature, watching her leave.
Arthur’s gaze landed on him like a stamp: DENIED.