ON OUR ENGAGEMENT NIGHT, HIS FIRST LOVE SWALLOWED PILLS AT OUR VENUE. IT WAS ALL BLAMED ON ME. HIS MOTHER BEGGED: "STEP ASIDE HIS HEART HAS ALWAYS BELONGED TO HER." I STOOD UP AND WALKED AWAY FOR GOOD.

Forty-eight hours after the Solstice Gala, the Sterling empire ceased to exist.

The *New York Times*, the *Wall Street Journal*, and the *Manhattan Chronicle* ran front-page exposés detailing the grand architectural fraud of Marlene Sterling. The surveillance footage from the Carlyle had been leaked to the internet—courtesy of an anonymous upload—and had garnered forty million views in twenty-four hours. Celeste DuPont was officially the most hated woman on social media, dubbed "The Orchid Actress" by late-night talk show hosts.

Dr. Albright lost his medical license and was indicted on three felony counts of healthcare fraud.

Celeste, facing an insurmountable civil lawsuit and the immediate threat of criminal perjury charges, fled New York on a red-eye flight back to Europe, reportedly couch-surfing in Marseille, her luxury wardrobe sold off to pay her immediate legal retainers.

Marlene Sterling checked into a private psychiatric clinic in Connecticut under a pseudonym, unable to show her face anywhere south of Westchester County without being jeered at by the very socialites who used to beg for an invitation to her tea parties.

And Adrian?

Adrian was left to clean up the ashes.

On Sunday evening, a torrential rainstorm battered the glass windows of my Tribeca loft. The city was drowned in a gray, weeping haze.

My intercom buzzed.

I walked over to the wall monitor. The camera at the building’s street entrance showed Adrian Sterling standing in the pouring rain, without an umbrella, soaked to the bone.

His tuxedo had been replaced by a sodden wool coat. He looked completely shattered.

I picked up the receiver. "Adrian. Leave."

*"Emma... please,"* his voice crackled through the speaker, competing with the sound of the thunder. *"Just five minutes. Please. They took the townhouse. My mother won't speak to me. The board voted me out this morning. I have nothing left, Emma. Literally nothing."*

"You have what you built, Adrian," I said coldly. "Deceit, cowardice, and debt."

*"I didn't know about Celeste’s texts! You have to believe me! If I knew she was faking it, I would have thrown her out myself!"*

"You didn't know the pills were fake, Adrian, but you knew she crashed our engagement party," I said, my voice steady through the wire. "You knew she disrespected me. You knew your mother attacked me. And instead of defending the woman who gave you everything, you dropped to your knees to hold Celeste’s hand."

A choked sob came through the receiver. *"I was weak! I've always been weak with my mother! You were the only strong thing in my life, Emma! You grounded me! Please... give me one chance to prove I can be the man you deserved."*

"I don't need you to be the man I deserved," I said. "I already found the woman I was meant to be without you."

*"Emma—"*

"If you don't leave my sidewalk in sixty seconds, the building staff will call the precinct," I said. "Goodbye, Adrian. Have a safe life."

I pressed the red button, cutting the feed.

The screen went black.

I stood by the window for a moment, watching from eighteen floors up as the tiny, solitary figure in the rain slowly turned and walked away into the darkness of Greenwich Street, swallowed by the storm.

I didn't feel triumph. I didn't feel hatred.