And the Ellison girl, who don't fall apart. Not in public. Not where anyone can see.
So she let the silence sit beside her like a ghost. Let it braid itself into her hair and seep into her sheets and line the edges of every mirror she passed.
And when the world finally moved on—when the morning talk shows dissected her downfall over lattes and studio lights—Venessa remained still.
Polished. Poised. Perfect.
At least on the outside.
Because the truth was, she didn't know how to stop being the girl men fell in love with.
And she had no idea how to start being the woman they left behind.
The financial collapse came next, trailing her broken engagement like an aftershock—except this wasn't personal. It was architectural. Systemic. Titanic.
The Ellison name, once etched into the marble heart of Manhattan, began to rot from the inside out.
Within hours, murmurs became headlines: The SEC Investigates Ellison Holdings. Anonymous Sources Cite Decades of Financial Misconduct.
Loans were called in with the delicacy of guillotines. Private partners pulled out faster than loyalty could be measured. And whispers of embezzlement—of buried debts, of forged books—grew louder than the string quartets that used to score their parties.
In less than 48 hours, her father vanished from the Forbes list and reappeared as headline fodder. A titan turned tabloid.
And the house—her house—the ivory palace with twenty-seven rooms and a rose garden that bloomed in designer symmetry, where she'd once played dress-up in real Cartier and hid love notes behind imported wallpaper? Gone. Just like that.
The staff evaporated like a shared hallucination. No final goodbyes. No loyal housekeeper sobbing into her apron. Just silence. Echoes.
Her custom Bentleys? Gone before brunch.
The black cards? Declined by dinner.
The worst part? No one even called.
The girls she'd once danced barefoot with at three a.m. in rooftop pools now sent "thinking of u" texts and sad-face emojis. Support was replaced by suggestion: maybe take some time offline? maybe donate something? maybe disappear?
But she didn't.
Venessa Ellison, in the ashes of the empire, still showed up.
She went to her best friend's birthday soirée at the rooftop bar they'd once sworn to rent out for her bachelorette. With nothing left to give, she arrived with the last object of value she still owned: a jewelry set her friend had once fawned over at a gala. The one Venessa had promised she'd never part with.
She wrapped it in tissue, tucked it into a Chanel box, and carried it like a peace offering.
But the vultures were already circling—draped in Balmain and bloodlust.
"She brought her own jewelry as a gift? God, that's so... sad."
"I heard she begged Damon not to leave. On her knees. Tragic."
"She always tried too hard. You could smell the desperation under the Dior."
"Honestly, I'm just shocked she didn't cry in public. Like, loudly. During daylight hours."
Laughter behind manicured hands. Lip gloss and poison.
Once, she'd been the girl with the room everyone walked into. Now, she was the girl whispered about when backs were turned. A tragedy, couture-wrapped. A modern Medusa, not feared for her power—but pitied for having once been beautiful.
The media crowned her "fallen."The board called her "expendable."Her world labeled her "finished."
But no one, no one, saw the real headline she was choking on every night alone in that empty apartment that smelled like despair and new paint:
HE PROMISED ME FOREVER.
And when it counted the most—when the spotlight hit and the orchestra played—he didn't even give her goodbye.
Seems like her dream to have a love marriage among those twisted and weird marriages she had grown up to see around her had remained to be dream always.
Venessa excused herself with a smile so brittle she feared it might crack her lipstick.
The hallway stretched before her like a gauntlet, each step measured, controlled—until the restroom door clicked shut behind her. Then her knees buckled.
She barely registered the cold marble against her palms as she slid down the wall, the dam finally breaking in great, heaving gasps. The panic came in waves—first the heat, crawling up her neck like a blush of shame. Then the cold, sinking deep into her bones until her teeth chattered.
Breathe. Just breathe.
But the air wouldn't come.
Her reflection in the gilded mirror was a grotesque parody of the woman who had walked into this party an hour ago—the bodice of her gown, so meticulously tailored, now felt like a straitjacket, each sequin a needle pricking her skin.
Outside, laughter spilled from the ballroom in bright, careless bubbles. Someone was telling a story—Damon's name tangled in the punchline. A fresh wave of humiliation crashed over her.
They were all laughing at her.
The ladies' lounge of The Carlyle was supposed to be a sanctuary—a gilded cocoon of marble and orchids where society women came to fix their lipstick and trade secrets. Tonight, it was Venessa's battlefield.
She barely made it past the threshold before her knees gave out.
The champagne flute slipped from her fingers in slow motion, shattering against the Carrara tiles with a sound like falling chandeliers. For a suspended moment, she stared at the wreckage—a thousand glittering fragments reflecting back pieces of her ruined face:
One shard showed the perfect bow of her lips, still stained that bespoke petal pink Damon had chosen for her last birthday, He had said: "Only this shade for my girl."
Another caught the dark streaks of mascara bleeding down her cheeks like ink from a severed pen.
The largest piece framed her right eye—wide, unblinking, the exact moment when Laila's barb had hit home "At least when my marriages failed, I got yachts out of it. What do you have, Ness? A broken heart and a trust fund even the IRS can't touch?".
From the main ballroom, muffled laughter bubbled through the walls. Someone was giving a toast. Crystal clinked. The orchestra slid into a Cole Porter standard. Life went on.
Venessa's fingers curled against the chilled marble countertop, her manicured nails leaving faint crescent moons in their wake. The restroom's oppressive silence was broken only by her ragged breathing—short, sharp gasps that fogged the mirror in uneven bursts.
The scent of gardenias hung thick in the air, cloying and sweet, mixing with the acrid tang of spilled champagne on her trembling hands.
Then—the whisper of silk. The deliberate click of designer heels.
"Oh Ven...darling." The voice dripped honeyed venom. Margot Pembroke lounged in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the frame, a martini dangling from her fingers. Her fox-fur stole slipped with calculated carelessness, revealing the Krane family diamonds glittering at her throat—the very set Damon's mother had once promised her over tea at The Plaza.
"Do be careful with the glassware," Margot purred, nodding toward the shattered flute at Venessa's feet. "They'll charge your father's account for that." A pause. "Assuming there's still an account to charge."