Chapter 8 - Paige’s Reality Check
Back in Greenwich, Paige Sterling-Miller was having the worst morning of her adult life.
She stood in the pristine kitchen of her four-bedroom colonial—the one with the inground pool and the professionally landscaped boxwood hedges—staring at an envelope emblazoned with the logo of the local country club’s board of directors.
Travis was sitting at the island, staring miserably into a mug of black coffee, his laptop open to a bank account balance that was flashing an ominous, blinking red warning.
"They revoked the membership," Paige said, her voice trembling as she let the letter drop onto the marble countertop.
Travis didn't look up. "Which one? The golf club or the yacht club?"
"Both, Travis! Both!" Paige slammed her hand against the marble, her face flushing crimson. "They said our account status is 'under administrative review pending financial solvency verification.' Do you know what that means? That means they found out Dad’s firm went under, and they assume we’re broke too!"
"Well, technically..." Travis started, before shrinking back under the laser-focus of her glare. "I mean, Paige, we are kind of close. The credit cards are maxed out, the second mortgage on the house is past due, and my bonus at the regional office got slashed by half because the parent company is tied up in the Sterling litigation."
Paige paced across the imported tile floor, her designer heels clicking rhythmically—heels she had bought on credit three months ago to impress the very women who had just blackballed her from the tennis ladder.
"We can't be broke," she hissed, her voice rising an octave. "We live in Greenwich! We drive a Range Rover! What are people going to say?"
"They’re going to say what they always say when someone falls off the cliff," a calm, familiar voice said from the doorway.
Paige spun around.
Standing in the entryway, holding a simple leather briefcase and wearing a charcoal wool coat, was me.
I hadn't knocked. Henderson had simply unlocked the side door using the digital override key that the property management firm—now wholly owned by my holding company—had issued that morning.
Paige’s jaw dropped. She looked like she had just seen a ghost walk through a brick wall.
"Elise," she choked out, her hands flying to her mouth. "What... what are you doing here? How did you get in?"
I walked slowly across the kitchen, setting my briefcase down on the marble island right next to Travis’s blinking laptop.
"The mortgage on this house defaulted forty-eight hours ago, Paige," I said evenly, my voice devoid of malice, carrying only the weight of absolute fact. "Travis forgot to mention that the second lien holder was Sterling Holdings. Which, as you might recall from the family gossip circle, I now control."
Travis buried his face in his hands, groaning softly.
Paige’s face drained of every drop of color. She backed up against the refrigerator, her eyes wide with a mixture of terror and white-hot fury. "You... you bought our mortgage? You came here to gloat? To kick us out?"
"I didn't come here to gloat, Paige," I said, unzipping my briefcase and sliding a single legal document across the counter toward them. "I came to offer you a transition plan."
Paige stared at the paper as if it were contaminated. "What is this?"
"It’s a lease-back agreement," I said. "You can stay in the house for the next twelve months at market-rate rent, provided Travis actually starts showing up to work on time instead of living off credit extensions. Or, if you prefer, you can pack your things by Friday, and I’ll have the movers clear the property for the new family moving in."
Paige opened her mouth to snap back, to unleash the usual torrent of condescension about my non-profit job, my shoebox apartment, and my "fake" lifestyle.
She opened her mouth—and then she closed it.
May you like
Because for the first time in her life, she looked at me and didn't see the awkward younger sister she could bully or mock over Thanksgiving turkey.
She saw the landlord.
