Chapter 7 - The Severing of Daniel
The collapse of Chloe’s wedding took less than sixty seconds.
The groom’s family marched out in a unified phalanx, followed immediately by seventy of the city’s most prominent socialites, who suddenly remembered they had early flights, pressing business, or a desperate need to not be in the same zip code as the Sterling family when Arthur Vance’s wrath fully descended.
Within three minutes, the ballroom was nearly empty.
The only people left beneath the brilliant chandeliers were the hotel security staff, Julian Hayes, Arthur’s bodyguards, Eleanor weeping in her chair, Chloe sobbing on the bandstand... and Daniel.
Daniel was still on his knees.
The realization of what he had thrown away was carving lines of pure agony into his face. He looked at the giant screen, which still displayed the frozen image of his sister plotting the destruction of his wife. He looked at his mother, whose greed had just destroyed their family’s name forever.
And then, he looked at me.
He began to crawl.
Literally crawl. On his hands and knees across the cold marble, dragging the knees of his bespoke tuxedo trousers over the shattered crystal of Edward Van Buren’s champagne flute, heedless of the glass slicing through the fabric.
"Vivienne," he sobbed, his voice breaking into a ragged, pathetic wail. "Vivienne, please... oh God, Viv, please look at me."
I didn't move. I stood wrapped in my father’s coat, my chin lifted, watching him crawl toward me like an insect.
"I didn't know," Daniel wept, stopping two feet from my shoes, his hands pressed flat against the floor, his forehead touching the marble. "I swear on my life, I swear on our baby’s life, I didn't know they staged it! I thought Chloe really lost the ring! I thought... I thought if we just showed them your purse, it would all be over!"
"You knew," I said.
The two words fell like lead weights into the silence.
Daniel lifted his head, his face streaked with tears and snot, his eyes bloodshot and pleading. "What? Viv, no, I didn't—"
"You knew how they treated me for three years, Daniel," I said, my voice steady, carrying an absolute finality that made him flinch. "You sat at Sunday dinner every single week while your mother told me I was common. You laughed when Chloe mocked my clothes. You let them treat me like a stray dog because it was easier for you to let them kick me than it was for you to stand up and be a man."
"I was trying to keep the peace!"
"You were trying to keep their approval," I corrected him. "And tonight, when your mother put her heel on my dress and tore the clothes off my body in front of two hundred people, you didn't even look at me. You looked at Edward Van Buren to see if he was watching. You cared more about his opinion than you did about the woman carrying your child."
"Vivienne, please..." Daniel reached out a trembling hand, trying to touch the hem of Arthur’s cashmere coat.
Arthur’s polished black shoe stepped firmly between Daniel’s fingers and the coat.
Daniel pulled his hand back as if he had touched an open flame.
"Marcus," Arthur said, not looking down at Daniel.
"Yes, Mr. Vance?"
"Call Robert Sterling’s former partners at Apex Capital."
Daniel’s head snapped up. "No... please, Mr. Vance, no..."
Arthur looked down at Daniel with the cold, detached gaze of an entomologist studying a beetle under a pin. "The twenty-five million dollar credit facility issued to Sterling & Cross contains a standard morality and executive conduct clause. Under Section 14B, gross public misconduct by a designated partner constitutes immediate default."
Arthur pulled his phone from his pocket, speaking into the receiver before Daniel could even beg.
"Apex Capital? This is Arthur Vance. Call the note. Every single dollar. Demand full repayment within twenty-four hours. If they cannot meet the capital call by 9:00 AM tomorrow, seize the underlying equity, liquidate the assets, and terminate Daniel Sterling’s employment immediately. No severance. No benefits. Blacklist his securities license across all three major exchanges."
"NO!" Daniel shrieked, clutching his head with both hands. "No! My career! My entire life! Viv, tell him to stop! You love me! You said you loved me!"
I looked down at the man I had shared a bed with for three years.
I felt no rage. I felt no hatred.
I felt only a vast, empty expanse of nothingness. The love I had carried for him had not died tonight; it had simply dissolved, like salt washed away by an ocean tide, leaving behind only the cold realization that the man I thought I married had never existed at all.
I reached down to my left hand.
I slipped off the modest, half-carat gold ring he had given me three years ago. The ring he had claimed he saved five months for, but which I had discovered six months into our marriage had been purchased on a department store credit card that he let go into collections.
I held it between my thumb and forefinger.
"You're right, Daniel," I said softly. "I did love you. But the man I loved would have taken off his jacket and wrapped it around me. The man I loved would have stood between me and his family, even if it cost him everything."
I opened my fingers.
The small gold band dropped through the air.
It hit Daniel’s shoulder, bounced off his tuxedo lapel, and rolled across the marble, coming to rest against the edge of the shattered bronze door.
May you like
"Goodbye, Daniel," I said.
***
