“You lied to me for nearly a decade,” he said. “You stole my family from me.”

“I protected you,” Victoria hissed, her calm facade finally cracking. “Look at her. She is a nobody.”

She pointed a manicured finger at me.

“She would have dragged you down to her level,” Victoria said. “The Sterling name represents a multi-billion-dollar legacy. It could not be diluted by a middle-class girl from Queens.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” I said, my voice shaking but loud enough to fill the space between us.

Victoria looked at me as if I were an insect.

“Quiet, Emma,” she said. “You are lucky I haven’t had you arrested for trespassing.”

“She is my guest,” Alexander said. “And you are leaving.”

He walked over to the desk and picked up his phone.

“I am calling the board,” Alexander said. “We are having an emergency meeting tomorrow morning at six.”

Victoria laughed, a dry, rattling sound.

“The board answers to me,” she said. “I built the alliances that keep you in that CEO chair, Alexander. If I pull my support, you are finished.”