The first thing that hit me in the private wine room at Lujardan wasn’t the truffles or the corked-history smell of old oak. It was Sinatra—soft and smug—leaking through the wall from the main dining room like the restaurant had decided my life needed a soundtrack. My father’s laugh landed right on the downbeat.
Across the crisp white tablecloth, a candle flickered in a crystal holder, catching the tiny enamel U.S. flag magnet clipped to my keyring—the cheap little thing I used as a makeshift phone stand when I was too tired to hold it. Red, white, and blue, chipped at one corner.
A souvenir from a gas station off I‑90 when I drove west with my first server in the back seat. My brother lifted his glass. “To Julian and Sienna,” he said, and my family laughed like they’d already won.
Then Sienna dropped her fork. The sound was small. The silence after it wasn’t.
“Wait,” she said, staring at me like she’d finally found the answer to a question that had been haunting her. “Are you the billionaire founder I’ve been chasing?”
That was the moment my family’s laughter started dying in their throats—one breath at a time. I should probably tell you how we got there.
My father leaned across the table like the world belonged to him, napkin folded with the precision of a deal memo, cufflinks glinting as he gestured toward my brother’s fiancée with a Montblanc pen. “Don’t mind Chloe,” he said, voice dripping with that practiced charm he used on clients and charity boards. “She’s our permanent work in progress.”
His smile widened, like he was doing me a favor by turning my life into small talk.
“She’s still trying to find her footing in the real world,” my mother added, sweet as an iced tea at a July cookout—until you tasted the bitterness. Sienna didn’t smile politely the way people usually did when my parents performed their little show. She didn’t laugh to keep the peace.
She just looked at me. Like she was comparing me to something she’d seen before. My name is Chloe Vance.
I’m twenty‑nine years old, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve been the quiet space in a family that only respected noise. My parents built a boutique investment firm in Chicago—high-fee, high-polish, the kind of place where the lobby always smelled like fresh lilies and expensive espresso. Their world was loud and curated.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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