I stared down at the dark surface of my coffee, unable to meet her eyes.
“But,” she continued, because she was still Sloane, “I am going to tell you to be careful. Not because of him. Because of Callum. If he finds out before the legal pieces are in motion, he’ll use it. He’ll make your entire professional claim about your personal life. He’ll say you’re emotional, impulsive, having an affair, rewriting the marriage because you want someone else.”
The words hit too close to the bruise.
“I know.”
“Good. Then be smarter than him.”
“I am smarter than him.”
“There she is.”
My phone buzzed again.
This time it was David.
I picked it up so fast coffee sloshed against the side of the mug.
David
Probably shouldn’t be sending this. But you need to see it.
A second later, an attachment came through.
Draft seating chart.
I opened it.
My eyes scanned the screen, the names and numbers resolving into a blueprint for my own erasure. The main table seated Callum, Laura, the investors, the Aldens, the Morrisons, the Thompsons—everyone whose trust I had earned. My name was not there.
I scrolled.
Table seven.
Holland Hart.
No title. No founding designer. No design principal. No seat beside my husband. No seat beside the clients whose homes I had designed, whose families I knew, whose trust had kept Crestline alive for years.
Just my name, tucked between a junior associate and a supplier’s wife.
A laugh came out of me. It sounded strange. Thin and sharp and nothing like humor.
Sloane stood. “What?”
I turned the phone toward her.
She read it. Then read it again.
“Oh. They’re stupid.”
That made me look up.
She handed the phone back. “They think the insult is the point. It’s not. The insult is a tool. The placement is the strategy.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’re separating you from the clients who know you. They don’t want you at the main table because they don’t want Elaine Morrison leaning over during dinner and asking why Laura is talking about a house she didn’t design. They don’t want the Thompsons thanking you in front of investors. They don’t want the Aldens looking at you when Callum talks about the stair hall.”
