THE REJECTED HEIRESS

The ballroom at the Plaza glittered like it had been poured from champagne. Three hundred of New York's richest people turned when Richard Cole took the microphone, his hand heavy on my shoulder. I could feel the diamonds in my red dress catching the light. I could feel my father's fingers digging in. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, smiling the smile that closed $800 million dollars worth of hotel deals. "I'm proud to announce the future of Cole Hotels. My daughter, Vivian, will marry Daniel Kensington next spring. Two empires, one family." The crowd applauded. Daniel, thirty-two, perfect hair, perfect teeth, stepped forward and looked at me like I was a property he had just purchased. "You'll love being my wife, Vivian," he whispered, for only me to hear. "No more of this CEO nonsense. Women look better smiling than leading meetings. And I want five sons." I had practiced this moment in the mirror for three weeks. Being polite. Being an heiress. Instead, I took the microphone from my father. "No," I said. The string quartet stopped. "No, I will not marry him. And no, I will not smile and look pretty while you sell me for a merger." My father's face went white, then red. He didn't yell. Richard Cole never yelled. He snapped his fingers, and his lawyer, Mr. Finch, appeared as if he had been waiting for this all night. Which he had. Finch handed me a single sheet of thick paper. It was still warm from the printer. _Notice of Disinheritance - Vivian Anne Cole, age 24, is hereby cut off from all family funds, trusts, properties, and titles, effective immediately. Credit cards cancelled. Penthouse access revoked. You have forty dollars in cash. - Richard Cole._ My sister Chloe, standing in a white dress that cost more than most cars, leaned in. "Bye, broke b***h," she whispered, and giggled. No one in that room of three hundred people said a word as I walked out in the red dress and the heels that suddenly felt like they belonged to someone else. The rain hit me the moment the doorman closed the Plaza doors behind me. Not even an umbrella. My phone buzzed once before it went dead. Company phone. Company account. My Uber cost thirty-eight dollars. I had two dollars left when the driver dropped me in Queens, in front of a motel whose neon sign flickered ROOMS $50/NIGHT, with the O burnt out. The woman at the desk looked at my red dress, my wet hair, my mascara running. "Fifty," she said. "I have forty." "Fifty." I slept that night in a room that smelled like bleach and old cigarettes, in a red dress worth four thousand dollars, with a cockroach I named Mr. Cole walking across the ceiling. I laughed. Then I cried. Then I laughed again because crying felt too expensive. At six in the morning, I washed my face in the rusted sink, put the red dress back on because it was all I had, and walked across the street. The building said WILDER SECURITY in black steel letters. Underneath, in smaller letters: WE PROTECT WHAT MATTERS. And taped to the glass, handwritten: HIRING. MUST KNOW HOW TO PUNCH. Inside, it smelled like coffee and gun oil. The man behind the desk was not what I expected a CEO to look like. He was twenty-nine, maybe, six foot four, suit jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tattoos running down his forearms like maps. Green eyes. A scar through his left eyebrow. The kind of handsome that made my mother's friends whisper at galas. He looked up from his laptop and stared. "Are you lost, Princess?" he asked. His voice was low, amused. "Barneys is on Madison. This is Queens." "I need a job," I said. My voice cracked. "I know how to punch. Harvard kickboxing club, two semesters." He laughed. It was a real laugh, surprised. "Harvard kickboxing. That's adorable." He stood. He was even taller standing. "You are Vivian Cole. I watched your disinheritance video at 2 a.m. It has two million views. #BrokeHeiress. Very dramatic exit." "You know my father?" "I know your father owes me two million dollars and refuses to pay. So yes, Vivian Cole in the red dress, I know you. And I think I like you more broke than you were rich." Before I could answer, the front window exploded. Three men in black masks came through, guns raised. "Wilder! Mr. Cole sends his regards!" They were my father's men. I recognized one of them - Tommy, head of hotel security, who used to give me candy when I was eight. I did not think. I grabbed the closest thing - a red fire extinguisher off the wall - and pulled the pin. White foam blasted into Tommy's face. He screamed. I swung the metal canister and hit the second man in the knees. He went down. My Harvard kickboxing professor would have been so proud. A strong arm yanked me down behind the desk. Jax Wilder's body covered mine, his suit smelling like rain and cedar. He fired twice over the desk, calm, precise. The kind of calm you only get from war. The shooting stopped. Silence, except for my heart trying to beat out of my torn red dress. He was still over me, his face inches from mine, breathing hard. "You just saved a billion-dollar CEO with a fire extinguisher," he whispered. "Was that the interview?" I whispered back. "That was the first date." He lifted me as if I weighed nothing, my red dress ripped at the hem, his white shirt stained with foam and blood, and carried me through the smoke and the shattered glass. Outside, the motel lady stood watching, cigarette in mouth. "Now you action star!" she shouted. "Still owe me ten dollars!" Jax pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and threw it at her. "Keep it. She's my new partner." He didn't put me down until we were in his penthouse, fifty floors above Manhattan. The entire city spread below us. I could see my father's hotels, little golden boxes, from up here. He handed me a glass of whiskey. Our fingers touched. A spark, stupid and real. "Tomorrow," he said, looking down at the city that had thrown me away twelve hours ago, "you are going to walk back into the Plaza. Same red dress. But this time, you are going to own the building." I looked at him, at the city, at the reflection of a girl in a torn red dress who was no longer an heiress, but something more dangerous. "And what do I have to do for that?" I asked. "Be my CEO," he said. "And maybe, if you survive the week, let me take you to dinner. A real one. Not a merger." For the first time since my father handed me that paper, I smiled. Not the heiress smile. My smile. "Deal."