The words echoed in my head, a jarring dissonance against the lavish backdrop of the room. During the entire year-long, agonizing wedding planning process—a process entirely hijacked by Margaret Sterling—I had made exactly one non-negotiable request.
“My parents sit in the front row, Harrison,” I had told him, standing in his sprawling Manhattan penthouse.
He had kissed my forehead, that condescendingly gentle kiss he reserved for moments when he thought I was being adorably naïve. “Of course, Eleanor. They raised you. They’ll have the best seats in the house.”
I looked from my father’s defeated posture to my mother’s desperate smile. And then, I looked across the vast expanse of the ballroom, straight at the front row.
Margaret Sterling was looking right back at me.
She raised her crystal champagne flute in my direction. The smile that spread across her impeccably manicured face was flawless, icy, and unspeakably cruel. It was the smile of a predator who had finally cornered its prey.
And in that fraction of a second, the naive girl who wanted a fairytale wedding died, and something else—something forged in cold, hard steel—took her place.
I was going to burn this entire room to the ground.
“Eleanor! What on earth are you doing back here?”
Harrison’s voice sliced through the heavy tension behind the pillar. He jogged toward us, his brow furrowed in annoyance, hastily adjusting his silver cufflinks. He didn’t even glance at my parents. His eyes were entirely focused on the schedule, the optics, the perfection of the event his mother had orchestrated.
“The photographer wants one last solo shot before the processional begins,” Harrison continued, reaching for my hand. “Come on, darling. Let’s not keep the bishop waiting.”
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