Chapter 231:
“Lucy,” she dictated into the voice memo app, sending the file to her minion. “Draft a press release. ‘Vivian Kensington stands by her old friend Sterling Thorne during this difficult time. True loyalty is tested in the fire.’ Post it. Now.”
She smiled. If she couldn’t be the Golden Girl, she would be the Saint of Lost Causes. She would hitch her wagon to Sterling’s falling star and spin it as a tragedy of two misunderstood geniuses.
Back at Thorne HQ, Sterling stormed into his office. It was empty. His executive team had cleared out.
Lance, his loyal assistant since the beginning, was standing by the shredder, feeding it documents.
“They’re gone, Sterling,” Lance said quietly. “The CFO resigned an hour ago. The legal team walked out.”
“Let them go!” Sterling screamed, throwing a paperweight through the glass partition of his meeting room. It shattered with a spectacular crash. “I don’t need them! I built this! Me!”
“Aurora built it,” Lance said. He didn’t shout. He just stated a fact.
Sterling froze. He turned slowly to look at his only remaining employee.
“Get out,” Sterling whispered.
Lance nodded. He placed his keycard on the desk. “I’m sorry, Sterling. But you did this to yourself.”
Lance walked out.
Sterling was alone. He pulled out his phone. He dialed Isabella.
She was his fiancée. She would understand. She loved him.
“The number you have dialed is no longer in service.”
Sterling frowned. He tried again. Same message.
gαℓησν𝒆𝓁s․com has stories worth exploring
He sat down in his leather chair. The silence of the empty office was deafening. He looked at the city below, the city he thought he owned.
His phone buzzed. A notification from his bank.
Auto-Payment Failed: Penthouse Mortgage. Insufficient Funds.
He stared at the screen. Insufficient funds.
The words blurred. He remembered Aurora, sitting at their kitchen table in the trailer park, counting coupons so they could afford meat for dinner.
“We’ll be rich one day, Sterling,” she had said.
“I am rich,” he whispered to the empty room. “I am…”
His voice trailed off. He wasn’t rich. He was bankrupt. In every sense of the word.
Sterling ran. He left the office, taking the service elevator to avoid the press. He hailed a yellow cab—a humiliation in itself—and gave his home address.
He needed Isabella. He needed her reassurance. He needed to see her face.
He burst into the penthouse.
“Isabella!” he called out. “Babe, it’s a mess, but we can fix it. I have offshore accounts. We can go to Rio.”
Silence.
The apartment felt hollow.
He ran to the bedroom. “Bella?”
.
.
.