“He didn’t even read it,” Pearl says. Her voice flat again. “Didn’t care enough to. You don’t matter, Rose. No one trusts you. Like Dad always said. You pretend to be good, so fucking self-righteous, but you’re just as lazy as your mother was.”
The air leaves my lungs. “You shut your mouth about my mother.”
“She was a housekeeper. And then suddenly she’s in my house, trying to be my mom, like she was good enough—”
“That is enough, Pearl!” Dad is on his feet. His voice cracks through the room. “That was my house. Not yours. And I’ve had about enough of your vitriol about Inês to last me a lifetime.”
I look at him. He’s flushed, jaw set, staring Pearl down—and his cold words move through me, quiet and separate, like I’m out of body.
“Enough about Mom,” I say. “But not me, right, Dad?”
He looks down at me, surprised. Like he’s forgotten I’m standing here. The thing that makes him stand up to Pearl isn’t me; it’s my late mother.
I turn to Logan. “Did you really sign that?”
“Rose, I didn’t know–”
“Did. You. Sign. It.”
“Yes,” he exhales.
I wipe my cheeks. I didn’t even realize I was crying. “Do you have any idea what you did to me?”
“I didn’t know—”
“No. You didn’t.” I look at my dad. He won’t meet my eyes. “I went to school, Dad. I worked my ass off. I’m good at what I do.” My voice breaks, but I press on. “You might not understand it, but I am.”
I turn back to Logan. “Do you have any idea what that cost me? Forget every penny I had to my name—”
“I’ll pay you back. Everything you lost. I can make up what the investors—”
“Stop.” The word comes out firm, like a whip. “Just stop talking about money.” He closes his mouth. “I lost my reputation. They went on social media and called me a fraud. A liar. They said I was dangerous.” I laugh, short and airless. “You were thanked for it. They praised the brave doctors who came forward.”
He stands slowly. “Rose—”
“They took my business plan. All of it. The formulas, the projections, the cost analysis, the layout. Everything I had built. They’re using it right now, downtown, in some glossy wellness center for rich people.”
He shakes his head in shame. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t look.” I feel something close in my chest. “There’s a difference.”
“If I had known it was you—”
“I’mgladit was me. Because if it was someone else, some innocent person who—” my voice breaks again. It’s strange, this feeling between cold clarity and hot heartbreak. I shake my head. “They would never have knownwhy. They would have spent the rest of their life wondering what they did wrong.” I look at him. “At least I know.”
“I’m so sorry.” He tries to take my hands, but I rip them away, hold them at my sides, curled into fists. It’s the only power I have right now, at this table, surrounded by people who don’t respect me.
“You’re a doctor. A fucking doctor.” My voice shakes. “You took an oath. You were supposed to—” I stop. Breathe. “Do you have any idea how many people I could have helped? Real people. People who couldn’t afford what you charge for twenty minutes of your time.” I look around the table. At my dad. At Pearl. And honestly, at everyone else because this room isfullof wealth. I look at the gleaming silverware and the untouched piles of decadent food, and the soft lighting that costs more per fixture than most people make in a month. “There is so much money in this room. So much. And you used it to take away the one thing I built that was actually going to do something good. For people who needed it.” My voice drops. “You didn’t just take my business. You took away myhope.”
I turn to Pearl. “Are you happy now?”
She looks pissed. And deeply, genuinely unhappy. Her lip trembles—for real, for once.
“Dad told me you were lying to people,” she says. “I believed him.”
Dad says nothing.
I don’t even know what to say.
