A Design for Sweet Revenge

Mallory

The weight of the leather portfolio is a familiar comfort in my hands. Inside, nested in silk paper, are the blueprints for a life I’ve been sketching since I was a little girl. Our life. I smooth down the front of my emerald green dress, the one Reid said made my eyes look like sea glass, and take a steadying breath. The air in the Grand Imperial Hotel’s private penthouse corridor smells like money and lilies.

My key card clicks. The heavy suite door swings inward without a sound. I was supposed to meet him downstairs in an hour, but I couldn’t wait. I wanted to give him this gift, our future home on paper, in private.

“Just one more,” a voice murmurs from the living area, low and feminine. It’s a voice I know better than my own.

My smile freezes. I step quietly onto the plush carpet, my heels sinking into the pile. The portfolio feels suddenly slick in my grasp.

And then I see them.

Reid, my fiancé, is sunk into a cream velvet armchair, his tie loosened, his top button undone. And perched on the arm of the chair, leaning over him like a vine, is my sister. Paige.

Her crimson dress is a slash of color in the muted room. One of her manicured hands is resting on his shoulder, her thumb stroking the line of his collarbone. He holds a glass of amber liquid, and she’s guiding it to his lips.

“Sera,” he says, his voice thick. “We should stop. She’ll be here soon.”

“She’s never on time,” Paige laughs, a sound like tiny, malicious bells. “Besides, we have to celebrate. To us. To the future.” She takes the glass from him and sips from the same spot his lips just touched.

I must make a sound, a choked gasp or a shuffle of my feet, because both their heads snap in my direction. Reid’s eyes widen. He doesn’t look guilty; he looks annoyed. Irritated that I’ve interrupted.

Paige, however, smiles. It’s a slow, lazy curve of her perfect, crimson-painted lips. She doesn’t move from her perch on his chair.

“Mallory. Darling,” she says, her voice dripping with false sweetness. “You’re early. We were just having a little pre-party toast.”

My gaze drops from their faces to the portfolio in my hands. The dream inside feels like it’s turning to ash. I look back up, my eyes locking on Reid. “What is this?”

He has the decency to stand, at least, setting his glass down with a soft clink. Paige remains, a queen on her throne. “Mallory, don’t be dramatic. Sera was just wishing me luck. For the speech tonight.”

“Wishing you luck?” I take a step forward, my voice trembling. “Your lipstick is on the rim of his glass, Paige. Your hand is on his chest.”

“An innocent gesture of affection,” Paige says, finally standing. She glides towards me, all smooth confidence and the suffocating scent of her jasmine perfume. “You’re so terribly sensitive. It’s one of your… charming quirks.”

She reaches out to touch my arm, and I recoil as if her hand is fire. “Don’t touch me.”

The portfolio slips from my fingers. It hits the carpet with a soft thud, falling open. The top page, a watercolor rendering of a sun-drenched modern home with a sprawling garden, is exposed.

Paige’s eyes flick down to it. A flicker of something, maybe contempt, crosses her face. “Oh, are you still playing with your little drawings? How sweet.”

That’s what she always called them. My little drawings. My silly hobby. She was the one with the head for business, the one our parents groomed to take over. I was just the artistic one, the dreamer who needed to be managed.

“Those,” I say, my voice dangerously low, “are the plans for our house. The one I designed for us.” I look at Reid, pleading with my eyes. “The one you said you couldn’t wait to build.”

Reid won’t meet my gaze. He runs a hand through his perfectly styled dark hair. “Mallory, listen…”

“No, you listen.” My shock is finally, blessedly, hardening into anger. “What were you doing? Tell me.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” he says, the classic, cowardly line of every cheat in history.

“Isn’t it?” Paige cuts in, stepping between us. She places a proprietary hand on Reid’s arm. “Honestly, Mallory, can’t you see? Some people just have a connection. A real one. Based on more than just… sketches of fantasy houses.”

Her words are a deliberate echo of a hundred childhood cuts. Every time I won an art prize and she won a business competition. Every time my parents praised her ambition and told me my talent for design was ‘a nice pastime’.

“You have stolen everything from me my entire life,” I whisper, the words raw. “My ideas, our parents’ attention, every bit of light in the room. I let you. I thought, at least I have him. At least Reid sees me.”

Reid finally looks at me, and his expression is not apologetic. It’s cold. “Sees you? Mallory, this engagement was never about seeing you. It’s a merger. The Greers and the Thornes. It’s the biggest deal of our generation. It secures our family’s future.”

My blood runs cold. “A merger? I’m a clause in a business contract?”

“You were the most logical choice,” he says, as if discussing stock options. “But you’re not strong enough. You’re all emotion and blueprints. This family, this empire, needs someone who understands power.”

“Like me,” Paige says softly, tightening her grip on his arm. “I understand. I’ve been helping Reid with the Thorne portfolio for months. While you were… drawing.” The way she says the word makes it sound like a disease.

I feel the air leave my lungs. The beautiful suite, with its panoramic views of the city lights just beginning to sparkle, feels like a cage. My engagement party. Our engagement party. The ballroom downstairs is filled with hundreds of people waiting to toast our future. A future that is a complete lie.

“So it’s been going on for months,” I state, the question dying on my lips. It isn’t a question.

Reid doesn’t answer. He just looks at Paige with a kind of possessive admiration that he has never, not once, directed at me.

“The party,” I say, my mind latching onto the next horror. “Everyone is downstairs.”

“Yes, they are,” Paige says, her tone bright and brittle. “And you are going to go down there, fix your face, and smile. You are not going to ruin this for our family.”

“*Our* family?” I laugh, a broken, ugly sound. “You mean *your* family. I was just a placeholder.”

“A necessary one, for a time,” Reid says, his voice devoid of any warmth. “Now, the situation has evolved. Paige and I work well together. We think alike. It makes sense.”

“It makes sense,” I repeat numbly. The logic of it is so cold, so transactional, it burns more than any passionate affair ever could.

“We need this alliance, Mallory,” Reid continues, his tone becoming instructional, as if I’m a clueless intern. “The Skyline Pinnacle project is on the line. With the Greers and Thornes united properly, we’re unstoppable. You can’t possibly comprehend the scale of what’s at stake.”

He dismisses my entire world, my entire talent, in one sentence. As if architecture, as if building things, is a child’s game compared to his world of hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts. The rage that has been simmering inside me for years begins to boil.

Paige walks over to the champagne bucket on the sideboard. She lifts the bottle, pops the cork with an expert twist, and pours a single, perfect flute. She ignores the second glass sitting right beside it.

She turns, holding the champagne up. The bubbles catch the light. “To the future,” she says, her eyes locked on Reid. “A stronger, more profitable future.”

He nods, a small smile playing on his lips. “To the future.”

They toast, and I am not there. I am a ghost in my own life.

Paige takes a delicate sip, then turns her gaze to me. “Well, go on,” she says, waving a dismissive hand. “Powder your nose or whatever it is you do. Don’t be late for your own party, sister. Think of how embarrassing that would be.”

She and Reid share a look, a private, intimate smile that cuts me deeper than a knife. He doesn’t even look at me as he walks towards the bedroom, presumably to fix his tie. Paige follows him, pausing at the door to look back at me one last time, her expression one of triumphant pity.

Then she closes the door, and I am alone.

I stand frozen in the opulent silence of the penthouse suite. The only sounds are the frantic beating of my own heart and the distant hum of the city below. My eyes fall again to the portfolio on the floor. My dream house. A house of glass and light and open spaces. A house designed for a life that was never real.

Slowly, I bend down and pick it up. My fingers trace the clean lines of the drawing. He said I couldn’t comprehend the scale of what was at stake. He’s wrong.

I comprehend it perfectly. He just has no idea of the scale of what he’s just lost.