He agreed to the meeting without protest.
The office was pristine: polished glass walls, chrome edges, not a trace of the family legacy - just ambition in a tailored suit. Andee didn't knock. She walked in like someone reclaiming her place.
Ethan was hunched over a spreadsheet, unbothered. "You're looking better," he said without warmth.
"I'm not here for compliments."
He leaned back, arms folding like armor. "Then say what you came to say."
Andee stepped forward slowly, voice steady. "You let them believe I was part of your plan. You let them suspect me."
He didn't flinch. "I never said you were."
"But you never said I wasn't."
Her hands trembled - but not with weakness. "You knew exactly what they'd think the moment you called on me. You painted me into your narrative because I didn't scream loudly enough to stop you."
A flicker of something - shame? Regret? - crossed Ethan's face. It passed.
"You always had their sympathy," he said. "The gentle one. You never had to fight. They bent around you."
"And that gave you the right to destroy me?"
"No," he replied, mask cracking. "But it felt good. Just once. To rewrite the script. To drag you down and finally see if you'd speak."
She stared at him, eyes steady.
"I did," she said. "I said no. And you used that silence like a scalpel. Not because I betrayed you. But because you needed someone to break."
She didn't raise her voice. She didn't stay for a reply.
And when she left, the door didn't slam.
But something inside him did.
Later that week, Andee sat beside her mother's bed.
The hospital room was muted with lilies and soft light. Mrs. Spencer looked older - less sharp, more translucent. Not the matriarch now, but a woman chipped by the slow erosion of grief.
"Ruby told me you didn't try to stop Ethan," she murmured, eyes on the window.
"I didn't know what he'd do," Andee said. "And when I did, I said no. But he didn't correct them. He let everyone believe what suited him."
Her mother closed her eyes.
"I wanted to believe you," she said. "But Ruby was so certain."
There it was. The fracture named.
Andee's voice caught. "I never asked to be the favourite. I never wanted to be anyone's excuse or disappointment. I just wanted to belong - to be seen for who I am. Not who I never became."
Mrs. Spencer turned her face toward her. For the first time in months, the gaze was clear.
"I see you now."
Not absolution.
But maybe - finally - a beginning