The champagne had already soaked into the grout by the time I got to it.

I knelt on the ballroom floor of Seabrook House and worked the wet rag in slow circles, my knuckles red and swollen from the cleaning solution. Nine years ago, I owned this hotel. Now I wiped up spills while the guests stepped around me.

"Mom, why is Brooke still here? She's embarrassing us."

I didn't have to look up to know who said it. Mason was eight. I had carried him, named him, sung to him through two winters of ear infections. He called Sloane Mom. He called me Brooke.

I looked up anyway.

Sloane stood under the chandelier in silver silk, a diamond bracelet catching the light on her wrist. Miles's hand rested on her waist like it had always belonged there. And in her ears were my mother's diamond earrings, the ones she wore to the hotel's anniversary gala every year until the cancer took her.

The night Mom died, Miles held me on the back terrace while I sobbed into his shirt. "I've got you," he said. "You and everything she left behind. I'll protect all of it."

Now he glanced down at me and sighed.

"Brooke, you're in the way." His voice carried just enough for the nearby tables to hear. "Try to remember that if I hadn't put in a word for you, you wouldn't even have this job."

Someone laughed.

I wrung out the rag. Champagne ran down my wrist and into my sleeve.

I left the bucket where it was and walked out.

The lobby was bright and warm, full of guests and the smell of lilies. I passed the front desk and stopped so suddenly a bellhop nearly ran into me.

My mother's portrait was gone.

For thirty years, it had hung above the fireplace, her smile soft, one hand resting on the original blueprints of this building. In its place was a giant oil painting of Sloane in a white gown, gazing out at the lobby like she'd built it herself.

I pushed through the front doors into the rain. The marble steps were slick. My foot went out from under me, and the edge of the stone met the back of my skull with a crack I felt in my teeth.

Then nothing.

I woke up gasping.

Soft sheets. Cream-colored walls. The faint scent of the lavender sachets I used to tuck into my drawers. My old bedroom.

I held my hands up in front of my face. The skin was smooth. No cracks across my knuckles, no burns from bleach.

A white wedding dress hung in its garment bag beside the closet, the lace visible through the plastic.

On the nightstand, the silver-edged calendar my mother gave me read November 6.

Two days before the wedding.

My phone buzzed against the wood. Miles.

I stared at his name until it nearly went to voicemail, then answered.

"Hey, I need you to bring the restructuring agreement to my office by four," he said. No hello. "The investors want it signed before the weekend. Also, Sloane finished the lobby concept. We're taking down your mom's portrait for the new focal wall."

I remembered this. I had said, Sure, whatever you think is best. It was such a small thing. Then the next thing was small, and the one after that, until I had no say left over anything at all.

"No," I said.

"What?"

"My mother's portrait stays exactly where it is."

A pause. "Brooke, it's just a painting."

"Then it shouldn't matter to you." I hung up.

The leather folder was on my desk, right where I'd left it, neon tabs marking every place he'd wanted my signature. In my last life, I signed without reading past the second page. Miles had told me the legal language would just give me a headache.

I sat down and read every word.

Page seventeen, the control provisions. I read it twice, then a third time, because the first two times my brain refused to accept it.

Sixty percent of the voting shares in Seabrook House would transfer to Harbor Line Holdings. Miles's company. In exchange, I would receive preferred shares with restricted voting rights.

Restricted. Meaning I could own a piece of my mother's hotel and have absolutely no voice in what happened to it.

It all clicked into place at once. Miles telling me I didn't need an independent lawyer because his team had it covered. Miles brushing me off every time I asked for the full financing package. Sloane introducing herself to vendors as "the incoming creative director," which I'd laughed off as her being dramatic.

They hadn't been sloppy. They had been preparing.

I dug through my top drawer until I found it, a cream business card with my mother's handwriting on the back: Call her if anything ever feels wrong.

Eleanor Marsh answered on the second ring.

"Brooke, sweetheart. Isn't the wedding Saturday?"

"Eleanor, if I haven't signed the restructuring agreement, has any ownership changed hands?"

Her tone shifted immediately, all business. "Not unless you've signed something I haven't seen. Have you?"

"No. And I'm not going to." I flipped back to page seventeen. "I need you to review everything. Every authorization, every power of attorney, anything Miles might have access to. And I want a formal notice drafted saying no one acts on behalf of Seabrook House without my written approval."

"I'll have it ready by tomorrow morning." She hesitated. "Your mother would be proud of you for asking."

I closed my eyes for a second. "Thank you."

After we hung up, I opened my laptop and scrolled back three weeks to an email I'd ignored. Halvorsen Restoration Design, New York. They'd seen my work on the hotel's east wing and wanted me on their historic preservation team.

Last time, I'd turned them down because Miles said a wife should be home.

I typed my reply in under a minute.

I'd be delighted to accept.

At 3:45, my doorbell rang.

Miles stood in the hallway in a charcoal suit, Sloane right behind him in a camel coat, looking around my apartment like she was measuring it for curtains.

"You didn't come by," Miles said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. "So we came to you."

He spotted the folder on the coffee table and reached for it.

I put my hand flat on top of it.

"I'm not signing."

He laughed like I'd told a joke. "Babe, we've been over this."

"Sixty percent of my company? That's not a partnership, Miles. That's a takeover."

Sloane drew in a sharp breath and pressed a hand to her chest. "Brooke, that's not fair. Do you know how many nights Miles stayed up working on this? We've been trying to save your hotel, and you're treating us like criminals."

Miles slid an arm around her waist, steadying her as if she might faint. "This is exactly why I handle the business side. You don't understand how investment works, Brooke. You're emotional."

I looked at his hand on her waist. The same hand. The same place.

I twisted the engagement ring off my finger. It caught at the knuckle, then came free.

I set it on top of the agreement.

"Then you won't need to handle anything for me anymore," I said. "The wedding's off."

The smile dropped off his face. His jaw locked so hard I could see the muscle jump.

For a second, nobody spoke. Sloane's eyes went from the ring to Miles and back again.

Then he exhaled and forced his voice soft, the way he used to talk me down from panic attacks after Mom died.

"Okay. You're stressed. I get it." He lifted his hands. "Even if you need space from the wedding, there's one thing I still need. Your mom's original restoration drawings. Just to borrow."

My mother's drawings sat in a heavy leather portfolio on the shelf behind me. We'd made them together the summer before she got sick, her pencil notes crowding every margin.

"Why?"

"For the investor presentation."

"The presentation you already finished," I said slowly. "So why do you need the originals?"

He glanced at Sloane. It was quick, but I caught it.

"The investors have already seen the concept," he said. "Sloane's name is on the design package. We just need the source files to back it up."

I pulled the portfolio down and opened it on my lap. My mother's handwriting looped across the first page: Keep the arches. Brooke's idea, and it's a good one.

"Then explain why your investors think Sloane designed my mother's work."

Sloane's cheeks went pink. Miles said nothing at all.

I closed the portfolio and held it against my chest.

He didn't have my hotel yet.

But he had already handed my talent to another woman.

I set the portfolio on my desk and kept my palm flat on the cover. Miles followed me across the room like I was a client who'd wandered off during a pitch.

"Brooke, listen to me." He lowered his voice. "The investors already approved the preliminary restoration plan. Sloane's plan. The originals are required for the next round of review. Without them, the whole deal stalls."

"Then let it stall."

"This is our dream." He hooked two fingers under the edge of the portfolio and started to slide it toward himself. "Yours and mine. Remember?"

I pressed down harder. The leather creaked.

A corner of the top sheet had worked loose, and I could see the brown ring of a coffee stain near the margin. I knew exactly how it got there. Mom had been three rounds into chemo that summer, a scarf tied over her head, bent over this same desk beside me while we redrew the old west wing. Her blue pencil notes ran down the side in her slanted handwriting. Tucked inside the back flap was a photo of the two of us on the scaffolding, both squinting into the sun.

Miles had brought us coffee that afternoon. He set my mug down too close to the drawings, kissed the top of my head, and said, "Your talent deserves to be seen by the whole world, Brooke. I mean that."

Now he wanted me to hand my mother's last work to Sloane so she could take a bow.

I pulled the portfolio out from under his fingers.

"You promised the world would know my work," I said. "You never said you'd put Sloane's name on it."

His mouth tightened. Behind him, Sloane unzipped her designer tote and pulled out a tablet.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," she said, swiping quickly. "I've put real work into this hotel, Brooke. Months of it. If you'd just look at what we've built, you'd see I'm not trying to take anything from you."

She turned the screen toward me.

The investor deck opened on a rendering of the west wing at dusk, warm light glowing through the restored arches. I knew that rendering. I'd adjusted the lighting on it at two in the morning because the shadows looked wrong on the stonework.

She swiped again. The ballroom ceiling. The courtyard. The lobby staircase with its widened landing.

Then a cross-section of the east corridor, and I stopped breathing for a second. There, faithfully copied into the digital file, was one of Mom's handwritten corrections: a note to shift the window header six inches to clear the original beam. Someone hadn't even bothered to delete it. They'd just traced over it.

I swiped back to the first page.

Lead Designer: Sloane Parker.

"You didn't redesign it," I said. "You changed the name on the first page."

"That's not—" Sloane started.

I was already pulling out my phone. I took a photo of the title page, then the rendering with Mom's note, then three more slides for good measure.

"Brooke, what are you doing?" Miles asked.

"Documenting."

Something else surfaced while I worked. Back in September, Sloane had offered to help organize the wedding vendor files. She'd sat at my work computer for most of an afternoon while I handled the florist on the phone. A week later, my entire project folder had moved to a different drive. When I asked Miles about it, he'd shrugged and said it must have been a software update.

I sat down at my laptop and opened my email. I searched the project name and sorted by date. There it was: my first message to the structural engineer, fourteen months old, with the CAD files attached. Then version two. Version three. The revision log showed my login on every single change.

I made a new folder and named it Evidence for Eleanor. I dropped in the screenshots, the emails, the file history.

Sloane watched the screen over my shoulder, and the color drained from her face.

I closed the laptop and stood.

"Here's what's going to happen," I said. "As of right now, both of you stop telling anyone that Sloane designed this. Investors, vendors, the press. All of it."

Miles laughed, short and cold.

"You really think that's how this works?" He shoved his hands into his pockets. "You inherited your mother's hotel. Her drawings, her contacts, her reputation. You didn't build any of it. The person who can actually turn it into money is the one who deserves to own it."

"It's my work."

"It's paper." He nodded at the tablet. "You're good at drawing pretty buildings, Brooke. Sloane knows how to sell them."

Sloane pulled a silk handkerchief from her coat pocket and pressed it under her eyes. "I never wanted to take anything from you. I swear. I just thought we were a team. But you've never been willing to share success with anyone."

"Okay," I said. "Then let's share."

I flipped open the portfolio and pulled out the section drawing of the old west wing. Damp had been eating through the north wall for decades. Mom and I spent two weeks figuring out how to fix it without ripping out the original plaster.

I laid it on the desk in front of her and tapped the north wall. "Walk me through the moisture repair. Why did we choose this detail?"

Sloane looked down at the drawing. Five seconds passed. Then ten.

"The goal was to preserve the historic character," she said. "While bringing the space into a more modern, elevated experience."

"That's not what I asked."

"It's a holistic approach."

"It's a lime-based breathable plaster system over a drainage cavity," I said. "Because the original brick holds water, and if you seal it with modern materials, it rots from the inside. It's on page four of the notes. In my handwriting."

Sloane set the handkerchief on the desk. Her hand wasn't quite steady.

Miles stepped between us. "Nobody in that boardroom cares about plaster, Brooke. Investors don't care about details. They care about vision, and they care about who's presenting it."

I looked at him and heard an older version of the same voice.

Two years into my last marriage, a magazine had wanted to feature the east wing restoration and interview me as the designer. Miles talked me out of it over dinner. "Does it really matter whose name is on it?" he'd said. "We're a family. Family matters more than credit."

I'd thought he was being sweet.

He hadn't been sweet. He'd been practicing.

I closed the portfolio, slid the west wing drawing back inside, and picked up my phone.

"What are you doing now?" Miles asked.

"Calling my lawyer."

Eleanor picked up immediately. I put her on speaker and told her everything in under two minutes. I said Sloane's name, Harbor Line Holdings, the investor deck, the date on my first CAD file. Miles started to interrupt once. I held up a hand, and he stopped.

"I'll send a cease-and-desist to both of them within the hour," Eleanor said. "And a preservation demand for every presentation file, submission record, and related communication. If anything gets deleted after receipt, that's on them."

"Send it now, please. They're both standing here."

"Give me five minutes."

While we waited, I took the fireproof document box out of my closet. I set Mom's portfolio inside, then the photo from the scaffolding, then the external drive with every version of the project. I turned the key and slipped it into my pocket.

Both of their phones chimed at almost the same moment.

Sloane read hers and covered her mouth.

Miles read his twice. Then I watched his eyes catch on the second email I'd forwarded from my own account, the one confirming my start date in New York.

"Halvorsen?" His voice jumped loud enough to bounce off the walls. "You took a job in New York? Behind my back? Who the hell said you could make that decision?"

"The wedding's off, Miles," I said. "Why would I need your permission?"

He stared at me like he'd never seen my face before.

"You can keep the investor presentation," I added. "Just remove everything that belongs to me."

He didn't answer. He grabbed Sloane by the elbow and walked out. The door slammed so hard the frame rattled.

I stood in the silence with my hand on the locked box for a full minute before my legs stopped shaking.

My phone buzzed. Eleanor: Notices delivered. Read receipts confirmed on both.

It buzzed again almost immediately. This time it was Tessa Moreno, the events manager at Seabrook House.

Brooke, Miles just called the front desk and told maintenance to take your mom's portrait down tonight. I told them to wait for you, but he said not to bother. They're getting the ladder now.

I grabbed my car keys off the hook and was halfway down the stairs before my coat was on.

At the bottom, my phone lit up with a new message from an unknown number. Just a photo, no text.

Sloane, standing in front of a full-length mirror in a fitted white gown, smiling at the camera.

The dress she planned to wear to my rehearsal dinner.

The ballroom smelled like roses.

White ones. Hundreds of them, twisted into an arch at the far end of the room and spilling over every centerpiece. I had picked those roses myself in August, standing in the florist's cooler with my phone pressed to my ear while Miles told me to go with whatever made me happy.

Under that arch, greeting guests in my spot, stood Sloane.

Her gown was ivory lace, fitted to the hip, sewn with tiny crystals that caught the chandelier light every time she moved. Miles stood beside her in his charcoal suit, shaking hands, his palm resting on the small of her back.

She was holding the seating chart. My seating chart. I could see the gold calligraphy from across the room, except the top line no longer read *Brooke & Miles*. Someone had pasted a fresh card over it.

"Is that the bride?" a woman near the bar whispered.

"I thought it was the Seabrook girl," her husband said.

"Then why is she wearing white?"

Sloane leaned toward an older couple, her smile warm and practiced. "Brooke needs some space tonight. Miles and I are taking care of everything."

The couple nodded sympathetically, like I was sick.

I looked past them, through the open ballroom doors and down into the lobby. The wall above the fireplace was bare. A pale rectangle marked where my mother had hung for thirty years, the paint around it faded by three decades of sunlight.

Something heavy dropped through my chest.

Tessa found me at the edge of the room, breathless. "Side corridor," she said. "I'm sorry, Brooke. I couldn't stop them."

I was already moving.

The service corridor ran along the east side of the ballroom, narrow and too bright. Two maintenance guys stood beside a ladder, and between them, Miles had both hands wrapped around the gilded frame of my mother's portrait.

It was still hooked to the temporary bracket they'd set it on. One of the metal fasteners hadn't been released.

"Wait," the younger guy said. "Mr. Calloway, the hanger's still—"

Miles yanked.

The frame tore free with a sound like snapping bone. The metal hook dragged across the back of the canvas and ripped clean through the edge, a jagged split running up beside Mom's shoulder. Gold leaf flaked off the corner. Splinters of old wood scattered across the tile at my feet.

"Stop!"

Miles turned. For half a second he looked caught. Then his face smoothed over.

"Brooke. You weren't supposed to be here tonight."

I stared at the tear in the canvas. Her painted hand was still resting on the blueprints. Her smile was still soft.

In the hospital, near the end, she'd gripped my fingers so hard her rings pressed into my skin. "Promise me you'll remember who you are," she'd said. "Even when people tell you otherwise. Especially then."

In my last life, I'd stood in a hallway like this one while Miles told me the portrait was an outdated decoration and I shouldn't get in Sloane's way. I'd swallowed it. I'd said okay. I'd gone home and cried in the shower so he wouldn't hear.

"It's just an old painting, Brooke," Miles said now, sighing. "Your mother isn't coming back."

I walked up and took the frame out of his hands.

It was heavier than I expected. He let go mostly from surprise.

"Put that ladder away," I told the maintenance guys. "Nobody touches anything else in this corridor."

They looked at Miles.

"I own this hotel," I said quietly. "Look at me, not him."

The older one nodded and folded the ladder.

"Tessa, can you photograph all of this? The hook, the frame, the floor. Every angle."

She already had her phone out.

Miles laughed under his breath. "You're making a crime scene out of a wall hanging."

"You damaged property that doesn't belong to you," I said. "So yes."

I carried the portrait back into the ballroom because I didn't trust leaving it anywhere he could reach. That was a mistake, or maybe it wasn't. Every head turned.

Miles caught up to me under the rose arch. He didn't lower his voice this time.

"Brooke, you owe Sloane an apology." He gestured at the room like it proved his point. "She's been working nonstop for this event. The flowers, the vendors, the guest list. You disappeared, and she stepped up."

"I didn't disappear. I canceled."

Sloane drifted over, crystals glittering, her hem brushing the broken corner of the frame I'd leaned against the stage. She pressed her fingers to her collarbone.

"I never wanted your place," she said, eyes shining. "I swear, Brooke. I only wore this because the dress was already paid for, and I didn't want the evening to fall apart."

"The dress you texted me a photo of an hour ago?"

Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Miles put his hand on her shoulder, steadying her, and I remembered the first time he walked me through this ballroom. Mom had still been alive. He'd pulled me under the chandelier and said, "On our wedding day, I won't look at anyone else. Not once. You'll be the only person in the room."

Now I stood in the room I'd planned for us, in jeans and a coat I'd thrown on in a panic, and every guest was looking at me like I'd crashed the party.

Miles leaned close. His cologne was the one I'd bought him for his birthday.

"Keep this up and see what happens," he said, low enough that only I could hear. "If you walk away from this wedding, don't expect me to keep saving your hotel. Harbor Line pulls out, and you'll be lucky to make payroll by spring."

Last time, that threat would have worked.

I stepped around him, walked to the podium beside the stage, and picked up the microphone.

It gave a sharp squeal of feedback. The room went silent.

"Good evening, everyone. I'm Brooke Seabrook." My voice came back at me from the speakers, steadier than I felt. "I'm sorry you came out tonight under the wrong impression. Miles and I are no longer engaged. There will be no wedding on Saturday."

A ripple went through the tables. Someone set down a glass too hard.

"Sloane Parker is not a member of my family or my staff," I went on. "She has no authority to host any wedding event in this hotel, in my name or anyone else's."

On the nearest table, a place card with my name in gold script sat beside an empty chair. I turned it face down.

Then I handed the microphone back to the stunned DJ and waved Tessa over.

On the drive here, Eleanor had emailed me everything I'd asked for. I'd had the front desk print it while I was looking for the portrait. Tessa passed me the folder, and I pulled out the first page.

"This is the formal cancellation for the wedding block," I said. "All bookings, deposits, and vendor contracts get handled according to the terms. Refunds go back to whoever paid. Nothing gets charged to the hotel."

Tessa read it and nodded. "I'll process it tonight."

I took out the second document, the one with Mom's signature from years ago and mine beneath it. "Ownership and management authority for Seabrook House. Starting now, nothing in the public areas changes without written approval from me or management I've designated. No paintings come down. No walls get redone. Nobody hangs anything new over that fireplace."

"Understood," Tessa said, and something in her face relaxed, like she'd been waiting a long time for someone to say it.

A gray-haired man in a navy blazer stood up from table four. I recognized him from the investor deck. Richard Thornquist.

"Miles," he said, "I'd like some clarity. Is the Seabrook partnership still moving forward or not?"

Miles opened his mouth.

I answered first. "I haven't approved any transfer of control, Mr. Thornquist. I haven't signed the restructuring agreement, and I won't. I also never authorized anyone outside this company to present my mother's original designs. My attorney sent notice this afternoon."

Thornquist looked at Miles for a long moment. Then he sat back down and took out his phone.

Miles's fingers had closed around a champagne flute so tightly his knuckles had gone white. The glass trembled.

"This is my mother's hotel," I said to him. "And you are no longer authorized to speak for it."

He didn't answer. Beside him, Sloane had stopped crying. She was watching Thornquist type.

I turned to the maintenance guys, who were hovering by the doors. "Wrap the portrait in a protective sleeve and send it to Delancey Art Conservation first thing tomorrow. Tessa has the details. I want it handled like it's the most valuable thing in this building."

"Because it is," Tessa said.

They slid the torn canvas carefully into a padded sleeve. I watched until my mother's face disappeared inside it.

Then I walked past Sloane. Her lace skirt brushed my knee. I didn't look at her, and I didn't look back at the arch.

The hallway outside the ballroom was cool and quiet. I made it three steps before my phone buzzed in my coat pocket.

Miles.

*You want to play owner? Fine. By Monday, everyone who matters will know you can't run that hotel on your own. Not for a single day.*