Chapter 3 - Banished to the Back Rooms
Vada was shoved backward out of the drawing room doors before she could utter another word. The heavy oak panels slammed shut behind her, cutting off the sound of her mother’s high-pitched laughter and Chloe’s rehearsed chatter.
Instead of heading down to the dark, damp kitchens where the domestic staff usually retreated, Vada walked down the opposite corridor toward the west wing of Meadowlark Hall. She pushed open the door to her true sanctuary: the old estate office.
Long abandoned by the family, this small, cluttered room was where Vada actually spent her days. While her sisters shopped in New York and slept until noon, Vada had secretly spent the last three years managing the estate's crumbling finances, paying off mounting debts, and trying to keep Meadowlark Hall from being seized by creditors.
She set the silver tray down on a desk piled high with bank statements, tax notices, and overdue invoices. Sinking into the worn leather chair, she rubbed her temples, feeling the exhaustion weigh heavily on her shoulders.
Her mother was completely blind to reality. Blinded by greed and social climbing, Eleanor was selling off the estate's remaining assets to fund lavish parties and designer gowns, entirely unaware that the family's bank accounts were bleeding dry.
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Vada opened the master ledger, her pen scratching against the paper as she calculated the week's expenditures. Every page revealed a deeper, more terrifying deficit. If things continued at this rate, Meadowlark Hall wouldn't just be embarrassed at a dinner party; it would be foreclosed and auctioned off by the bank before the year ended.
And yet, her mother continued to parade Chloe, Megan, and Brittany around like prized racehorses, hoping a billionaire would bail them out of a financial ruin they didn't even know existed.
