Chapter 412

[ 1,021 words ]

Delia’s POV

Laughing stock.

You are nothing without a borrowed last name.

Useful for one reason only.

I walked back to my office on the fourth floor and sat down behind the desk that still did not feel like mine. The guest list glowed on the screen. Windsor, Julian, and Katia. Main table. Center seats. The same placement Noah had ordered days ago. The same placement that now felt like a public execution waiting to happen.

I opened the run-of-show document and stared at the timeline. Entrance protocol. Greeting sequence. My name listed beside the task of receiving the primary guests. I typed nothing for a long time. My fingers stayed still on the keys while the conversation in Noah’s office replayed on a loop.

He had not raised his voice. He had not needed to. Every sentence had been designed to strip away whatever dignity I still pretended to carry. He had taken Katia’s insults and sharpened them into company policy. I was not a colleague. I was not even a proper employee. I was a temporary tool that would be discarded the moment it stopped serving the event.

I thought about the way Julian had looked at me across his desk when I offered him capital his company did not need. The mild confusion. The quiet dismissal. Then Katia, standing in her own office, listed my failures like she was reading a grocery list. Neither of them had needed to shout. The truth had been enough.

My phone buzzed. A message from Adrian: Noah wants the final vendor confirmations on his desk by morning. Do not be late.

I typed a short reply and set the phone face down.

Outside the window the city continued as if nothing had changed. Somewhere across town Katia was probably already home with Julian and their son, living the life I had once performed for cameras. Somewhere in this same building Noah was already moving on to the next item on his list, having filed me under “barely useful p>

I pulled the seating chart up again and forced myself to work. Table numbers. Name cards. Dietary notes. Every small task that still belonged to me. I checked the florist confirmation. The security schedule. The media holding area. I rewrote the greeting script three times until the words “Mr. and Mrs. Windsor, welcome” sat on the page without making my stomach turn.

It still made my stomach turn.

By the time the office grew quiet and most of the lights on the other floors had gone dark, I had finished everything Noah had demanded. The documents were clean. The timeline was tight. The entrance plan put me exactly where he wanted me: visible, smiling, and small.

I saved the files, shut down the computer, and sat in the dark for a while longer. Katia’s voice returned one more time, quieter now but no less sharp.

You still don’t know what you are without a borrowed last name.

I had no answer for her. Not in her office. Not in this one.

I stood, gathered my bag, and left the building with the same straight spine I always forced into place when I felt like nothing. The night air hit my face and did nothing to clear the words still sitting in my head.

A few days until the gala. Few days to smile at the woman who had taken everything and the man who had never wanted me.

Few fucking days to prove I could still be useful to people who already saw me as disposable.

I walked to my car and drove home in silence, carrying both rejected folders and the clear understanding that the only thing keeping me inside Vesper Group was a single event and the thin hope that I could survive it without breaking in public.

Noah had made the terms plain.

Katia had already written the review. I was exactly what they both said I was. And the worst part was that I could no longer argue with either of them.

Noah’s POV

I sat behind my desk and stared at the two rejected folders Delia Kensington had left for me the day before. One from Julian Windsor. One from Katia Windsor. Both untouched by the people who mattered. Both returned with the same dismissal that told me exactly how little respect Vesper Group had earned in those rooms.

Delia Kensington could not get one fucking thing right.

She had walked into WEG with a proposal so poorly structured that Julian Windsor had not even opened the folder. She had walked into Katia’s office and somehow turned a simple investment conversation into a personal screaming match that ended with her being thrown out. She cried. She snapped. She made everything about her wounded pride and her missing last name. Every task I gave her arrived late, incomplete, or soaked in whatever emotional storm she was living through that hour.

If it were up to me, I would have fired her the day she came back from Julian’s office empty-handed. I would have ended the contract the moment she failed the second pitch. But my father had been clear. She was useful. She still knew the names and the faces and the petty hierarchies of the city’s elite. That knowledge had value until the gala was finished. After that I could throw her out myself.

I rubbed my temple and looked at the seating chart she had submitted. Windsor, Julian, and Katia. Main table. Center seats. She had followed the order, at least. Everything else about her was a mess. Emotions spilling into every conversation. Desperation so thick you could smell it when she walked into a room. She looked at every powerful man like he might hand her a new identity if she smiled hard enough. I hated that look. I hated the way she tried to recover her dignity after every public failure. I hated that my father still saw something worth keeping in her.

My phone rang.

I watched it vibrate across the desk. Father. Of course. He always called when he already knew I was angry.

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