Chapter 207
Vanessa
The bass thrummed through my chest like a second heartbeat, each pulse a reminder that I was still here, still breathing, still somebody. The corner booth at Lux—one of those deliberately dim places where Manhattan's desperate came to pretend they weren't drowning—had become my temporary kingdom. Pathetic, really, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
I lifted my martini glass, watching the olive spin lazily in vodka that cost more than most people's rent. At least some things hadn't changed. I could still afford top-shelf liquor, even if I couldn't afford to show my face at the clubs that actually mattered anymore.
"Another round!" I called out, my voice sharp enough to cut through the music. The bartender's eyes flicked toward me with something that looked uncomfortably like pity before he nodded.
Fuck him. Fuck all of them.
Linda Chen perched on my right, her designer knock-off handbag sitting between us like a declaration of her second-tier status. Emma Wright occupied the other side, nursing a cosmopolitan with the kind of careful precision that screamed "I'm watching my budget." Third-rate families, both of them. The kind of girls I would have ignored at any decent party six months ago.
Now they were the only ones who'd answered my calls.
"I still can't believe Madison didn't come," Linda said, her voice carrying that particular tone of false sympathy that made my teeth ache. "After everything you did for her birthday last year—"
"Madison can go to hell," I snapped, downing half my martini in one burning gulp. The vodka scorched down my throat, but it was better than feeling the hollow ache in my chest. "She's a coward. They're all cowards. One little setback and suddenly I'm radioactive."
Emma leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with the kind of interest that made my skin crawl. She was enjoying this. They both were. Watching Vanessa Holland—former Vanessa Holland—spiral was probably the most entertainment they'd had in months.
"A little setback?" Emma's perfectly plucked eyebrow arched. "Vanessa, your father disowned you on speakerphone in a luxury car dealership. It's all over Page Six."
My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass until I thought it might shatter. The memory of that moment—Marcus's voice, cold and final, declaring I was no longer his daughter while that bitch Serena stood there with those doe eyes, pretending to be shocked—made bile rise in my throat.
"Fuck!" The word exploded out of me, loud enough that a couple at the next table turned to stare. I didn't care. Let them look. Let them see what their precious new darling had done to me. "Fuck Madison. Fuck Caroline. Fuck all those backstabbing bitches who can't see past one bad day. I'm still Marcus Holland's only daughter. He'll calm down. He always does."
Linda exchanged a glance with Emma that I wasn't supposed to catch. Too slow, ladies. I'd been reading those kinds of looks my entire life.
"Oh, absolutely," Linda said, her smile too bright, too eager. "That's what I keep telling everyone. You know who your real friends are now, Vanessa. We knew you were in trouble, and we're still here."
The "we're still here" sounded suspiciously like "we're hoping to watch the crash up close," but I swallowed that observation with another mouthful of vodka.
Emma leaned back, crossing her legs with deliberate elegance. "Exactly. And I keep saying, our Vanessa isn't the type to stay down. You'll bounce back. Eventually, everyone will see that Serena for what she really is—a gold-digging nobody who got lucky."
The sound of her name—Serena—hit me like a physical blow. My hand slammed down on the table hard enough to make the glasses jump, vodka sloshing over the rim of my martini.
"Don't," I hissed. "Don't even say her fucking name like she's a person. She's a parasite."
But even as the words left my mouth, I could feel the lie in them. Because Serena wasn't struggling anymore, was she? No, she was thriving. Glowing. Untouchable.
My phone screen lit up on the table between us, and I couldn't stop myself from looking. The notification banner showed another society blog post: "Lance Lawson and Serena Vance: New York's Most Unexpected Power Couple."
I snatched up the phone, my thumb scrolling through article after article, each one more nauseating than the last. Photos of them leaving some charity gala, her hand tucked into the crook of his arm like she belonged there. Opinion pieces calling them "perfectly matched" and "a modern fairy tale." Fashion magazines analyzing her sudden transformation from nobody to style icon.
"Look at this!" I shoved the phone toward Linda and Emma, my voice climbing toward hysteria. "Look at this garbage! 'A match made in heaven.' 'The perfect blend of old money and artistic soul.' It's fucking propaganda!"
Linda peered at the screen, her expression carefully neutral. "Well, the media does love a good Cinderella story—"
"She's not Cinderella!" I was shouting now, and I didn't care. "She's a broke nobody from a bankrupt family who spread her legs for the right man at the right time! That's not a fairy tale, that's prostitution with better PR!"
Emma reached across the table and refilled my glass without asking. "I mean, you're not wrong. But right now, Serena is New York's darling. She's got Lance Lawson's protection, his money, his connections. She's untouchable."
"She's living in the fucking clouds," I muttered, my fingers tightening around my phone until the case creaked. Another notification popped up—a candid shot of them leaving Lawson Capital, Lance's hand on the small of her back, both of them smiling like they shared some private joke the rest of the world wasn't clever enough to understand.
My thumb hovered over the screen, trembling. I wanted to throw the phone across the room. I wanted to smash something. I wanted to scream until my throat bled.
Instead, I just kept scrolling. Torturing myself with image after image of Serena's new life. The life that should have been mine.
"The social media response is insane," I said, my voice dropping to something bitter and hollow. "Everyone's calling them 'couple goals.' Talking about how they're 'perfectly matched' because he's this brilliant, untouchable CEO and she's this misunderstood artist with a tragic backstory. It's such bullshit."
Linda nodded sympathetically, but there was something calculating in her eyes. "It does seem like the whole city has fallen in love with them."
"Because they're idiots," I spat. "They see what they want to see. A handsome billionaire and his rescued princess. Nobody bothers to ask how a girl with a negative net worth suddenly has a thriving business and designer clothes and—" I broke off, my breath coming too fast.
Emma took a long sip of her cosmopolitan, watching me over the rim of her glass. "You're right. It's not fair. But Vanessa, honey, you have to face facts. Right now, Serena has resources you don't. Money. Power. Lance fucking Lawson in her corner. No one's going to touch her."
"No one's going to touch her," I repeated mechanically, the words tasting like ash.
Linda leaned in, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Unless..."
I looked up sharply, hope flaring in my chest like a match in the dark. "Unless what?"
Emma's smile was slow and wicked. "Unless you find yourself a new benefactor. Someone with the kind of money and influence to compete with Lance Lawson."
"And where exactly am I supposed to find—" I stopped mid-sentence as Emma's meaning clicked into place. My brain, sluggish from vodka and rage, finally caught up.
"Oh my God," I breathed. "Wesley."