“Don’t block the entrance, Cassidy. Only the guests who actually matter will be allowed in this section.”
My brother Jeffrey told me that on his wedding day with the same cold indifference he used when asking someone to move a piece of furniture. He adjusted his silk tie in front of a massive gilded mirror inside the ballroom of a private estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains as if belittling me was just another task on his checklist.
I was twenty-eight years old, wearing a peach-colored silk dress he had pressured me to buy and holding a heavy Italian espresso machine that had cost me two months of my rent. The ballroom looked like a scene from a luxury travel magazine where crystal chandeliers sparkled like diamonds and massive clusters of white orchids decorated every corner.
Waiters moved through the crowd in white gloves while a string quartet played soft melodies for the rows of executives and wealthy partners who walked through the doors. Jeffrey lived for this kind of display and had spent his entire life treating every conversation like a speech and every social interaction like a rung on a ladder.
I was trying to stay balanced in my heels when he approached me with that familiar expression of disgust he always wore when he thought my presence was ruining his perfect aesthetic. “Why are you standing here?” he asked without bothering to lower his voice in front of the other guests.
“I came to celebrate your wedding,” I told him while trying to figure out if he was actually being serious. “You are cluttering up the entrance, Cassidy,” he replied as he sighed with deep annoyance.
“The entrance?” I asked while a sharp heat began to rise in my chest. He checked his watch and explained that high-level investors and the board of directors from Vanguard Tech would be arriving any minute.
“I cannot have any distractions in the background of the professional photography,” he added while looking at my outfit with a critical eye. I looked down at my dress and my hair which had both been chosen according to his very specific and demanding instructions.
“I am your sister,” I said as I tried to keep my voice steady. “And that is exactly why I found a much more appropriate place for you to sit,” he answered while pulling a seating chart from his pocket.
He pointed to Table Nineteen which was tucked away in the furthest corner of the room right next to the swinging doors of the kitchen. The table was marked with a small drawing of a balloon and was clearly designated for the youngest guests at the party.
“Jeffrey, that is the children’s table,” I pointed out with a look of disbelief. “Great-Aunt Maude will be there too and since she is mostly deaf, you two will be very comfortable together,” he replied as if he were doing me a favor.
“You want me to sit with toddlers?” I asked. His patience finally snapped and he told me that I simply did not fit in with the people who came here to network and close major deals.
“You are not on their level, so just sit in the back, eat your meal, and please try not to embarrass me,” he muttered. My throat tightened with anger as I reminded him that I worked just as hard as anyone else in the room.
He let out a short and mocking laugh before telling me that my little freelance blog did not count as a real career. “I do not have time for this, so stay at Table Nineteen and do not even think about approaching Xavier Thorne when he arrives,” he commanded.
He told me that a billionaire CEO like Xavier was completely out of my league before he walked away to greet a group of men in expensive suits. I watched him walk through the crowd and had no idea that the man he just forbade me from speaking to was actually my biggest client.
I knew that the revolutionary speech Xavier had given at the London summit last week had been written on my laptop at three in the morning. To my brother, I was just a strange sister who wrote small things in coffee shops and had never achieved anything significant.
I took a deep breath and walked toward the back of the room where I found the disastrous setup of Table Nineteen. There were plastic cups and crayons scattered everywhere along with plates of cold chicken nuggets and a baby crying in a stroller.
I sat down in the middle of the chaos until a young boy with a messy bowtie looked up at me and said he liked my dress. “Thank you very much,” I replied with a small smile.
“I like monsters and fast cars,” he told me while holding up a blue crayon. “I like those things too,” I said as the woman watching the children gave me a sympathetic look from across the table.
“Did they exile you to the corner as well?” she whispered with a tired laugh. I told her that I apparently did not fit the desired profile for the main tables and she replied that at least nobody at this table was pretending to be someone else.
I sat there for the next hour handing out juice boxes and drawing a massive dragon for the boy whose name was Parker. From my seat in the shadows, I could see my brother acting like he was the king of the world while my parents beamed with pride at his success.
They had spent years looking down on me and asking if I was still writing things on the internet while they praised Jeffrey for knowing how to climb the social ladder. They never understood that while Jeffrey talked constantly, I was the one who listened and turned those observations into powerful words.
By the time I was twenty-six, I had signed secret contracts with some of the most influential people in the country who were happy to pay for my voice. I earned more money than my family could ever imagine, but I kept my success quiet and they never bothered to ask the right questions.
I was finishing the wings on Parker’s dragon when I felt the entire energy of the ballroom shift toward the front doors. Every conversation stopped as the guests turned to see that Xavier Thorne had finally arrived.
Xavier did not just walk into the room because he was the kind of man who commanded attention without ever having to say a single word. He wore a charcoal suit and looked around the hall with the calm confidence of someone who had nothing left to prove.
Jeffrey practically sprinted across the floor to greet him and told him what an incredible honor it was to have him at the wedding. Xavier shook his hand politely but his eyes were already scanning the room as if he were looking for someone specific.
“We have a seat for you at the head table next to the primary investors,” Jeffrey said while grinning like he had just won a prize. Xavier replied that he would actually prefer a much quieter spot where he could relax.
NEXT PART 👇👇
