Page 42 of The Cruel Heir
Sterling stiffened. His hand snapped back from my face like it burned him. He stood slowly, his entire posture hardening into something cruel and calculated.
“Didn’t realize you had a thing for smart girls,” Chadwick continued, smirking. “Daddy would be thrilled.”
Sterling didn’t look at him. He looked at me.
And I knew what was coming before he opened his mouth.
“You think you’re different?” he said, cold and sharp. “You’re not. You’re just another girl who thinks she’s special.”
I flinched.
Sterling didn’t stop. “Easy attention. Easy tears. Easy everything.”
He turned on his heel, brushing past Chadwick, like I didn’t matter at all.
I sat frozen, hum trapped in my throat, violin still clutched in my lap.
I didn’t cry until the door closed behind them both.
Now,my father’s disgrace with his own financial holdings had stripped me of everything. Once a princess of privilege, I had become a servant in the same country club that had once been my playground. The people I had grown up beside whispered about me behind their champagne glasses, reveling in my fall from grace. But Sterling? He was something else entirely.
He was the worst.
I hadn’t worked another shift since the wedding.
Not officially.
Tara, my manager, and the closest thing I had to an ally in that place, went silent the morning after. Her usual one-word texts turned to nothing. My name disappeared from the schedule app.
No explanation. No warning. Just… erased.
I tried to tell myself it was a glitch. That, maybe, things had just shifted around. I even emailed to confirm my hours, still pretending I didn’t know the truth.
But I did.
Sterling had made a phone call. Or worse, he hadn’t needed to.
His last name did the talking. And Tara, for all her kindness, answered to the Kingsleys.
Still, I hadn’t let myself believe it. Not fully.
I was going to go back tomorrow. I’d show up in uniform, smile like I always did, act like everything was fine. If I was on the schedule, I’d work. If I wasn’t…
I didn’t know what I’d do.
Because if he’d taken this too, this last scrap of dignity, I wasn’t sure who I’d be without it.
The morning sunbarely peeked through my curtains as I vigorously brushed my teeth. I gagged. Twice. I blamed nerves, but the back of my mind whispered otherwise.
Trembling with anxiety, I rinsed my mouth, and walked back into my room, sitting at my vanity, my silk scarf still wrapped around my head from the night before. With a tired sigh, I reached for my spray bottle and lightly misted my curls, working the water into my hair with careful fingers.
My curls, a mix of tight coils and springy spirals, needed coaxing back to life. I smoothed in my leave-in conditioner, raking it through section by section, before scrunching in a curl cream to define them. Once satisfied, I pulled out my satin scrunchie, fluffing my hair out to let it dry, as I slipped into my street clothes.
It was important that I wore it the way I wanted. That folks saw me as who I truly am. Before they tried to erase my existence.
The wives gatheredin the lounge like a quiet storm, soft laughter and clinking glasses filling the air. Madeline Kingsley’s voice floated over the hum, smooth and practiced, like she was handing out advice I didn’t ask for.
“You know, Zara should really think about straightening her hair for her shifts here,” she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “It just reads better for the country club crowd. Sleeker. More... professional.”
