My mother-in-law pushed my luggage to the ground and gave me a look that seemed to wipe me off the face of the Earth.
“This place is for people with actual class, not cheap girls like you,” she said, while my husband, Daniel, looked anywhere but at me. I stood there on the curb, totally humiliated in front of total strangers.
They just dropped me off at the entrance of Lotus Bay Resort like some useless luggage. “Have fun walking home. Maybe it’ll remind you where people like you belong,” my mother-in-law, Vivian, the undisputed queen of venomous grins and charity luncheons, called out from behind the tinted glass of the van.
The van drove away leaving clouds of dust behind, along with my husband’s family, their expensive suitcases, their artificial laughter and even a cake which they had bought to celebrate getting rid of me.
There I was, standing in front of the golden gate in a cheap pale blue dress, cheap sandals, and that stupid silence which they considered my weakness. The security guard was looking extremely uncomfortable. “Madam, are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
Daniel sat right next to his mother in the van. Not once did he open his mouth to defend me. While Vivian continued to speak about me throughout the entire car ride as if I were a stray dog who somehow crept into a mansion, Daniel continued to look at his phone. After his sister accidentally spilled red wine on me at breakfast, they all laughed. And after Vivian executed the final move to kick me out at the gate, Daniel said, “Don’t make a scene, Maya.”
I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. A message from Daniel: “Don’t embarrass us. Catch a bus home.”
A second notification appeared underneath. It was from Mr. Han, the general manager of the resort. “Ms. Arden, the dinner for the investors will be at seven o’clock. Shall we get the private boardroom ready?”
I looked at the resort. The place Vivian thought I was too much of a nobody to set foot inside of. The place Daniel thought was out of my reach.
The place that wouldn’t even exist but for the fact that my company had rescued it from bankruptcy three years ago.
I sent him a text. “Arrange the transfer. And upgrade the Mercer family to the Presidential Pavilion on the house.”
The guard’s radio buzzed and I could see his facial expression change before my eyes. He suddenly straightened himself up. “Ms. Arden?”
Finally, I smiled. “Please, escort me to my office.”
And by evening, Vivian was basking in her own evil glory. I watched her walk past the lobby in my office’s security feeds while Claire made videos beside the waterfall, captioning it as “getting rid of the dead weight.” Daniel followed them both around like an obedient dog.
The Mercers knew I worked in corporate finance, but little did they know I wasn’t some junior employee sitting behind a cubicle entering data into some program for the actual boss. No, I founded Arden Hospitality – the same company that owns the entire property.
On the eighth, they arrived in the Presidential Pavilion, going crazy because of the private pool and champagne bar. “See?” I heard Vivian saying to Daniel from the audio stream. “This is the way we should be living.”
I just watched as I opened a folder on my desk called MERCER.
Vivian loved being the bad guy, but what ultimately led to her demise was her sheer greed. For two years, she had Daniel stealing information from my laptop at home – budgets, vendor lists, contractors’ bids. She then gave them to her brother’s construction business, which would bid in huge amounts for our budget using random LLC names.
I had been watching it for months. Bank statements, wire transfers, emails, and a complete confession from their accountant once I threatened him. Daniel hadn’t just stood there but was busy stealing from me by posing as a loving husband.
Elise, my attorney, arrived at nine in the morning as if ready for battle. “Are we pulling the trigger?”
Daniel was holding up a glass for a toast for his mom on the screen. “He dropped me by the roadside,” I told her. “We’ve got to destroy them.”
The following day, Vivian was at the resort’s restaurant where she kept ordering the staff around like they were her personal servers. I walked in ten minutes after her arrival.
Once I was inside the room, the managers formed a line and greeted me. “Good morning, Ms. Arden.”
Daniel and Vivian stared at me with confusion, and then I approached then and said, “Are you enjoying your stay?”
“What are you doing here? Did you beg the front desk for a cleaning job?” she asked me.
Mr. Han stepped in right behind me. “Ms. Arden is the owner of Lotus Bay and the CEO of Arden Hospitality.”
Daniel jumped up from his seat, sending it back. “Maya, please, can we talk privately.”
“Not happening,” I said. “You’ve chosen the gate; we’re going to do this here.”
Vivian slammed her fist down on the table. “You’re a Mercer now! Don’t forget that!”
I lowered myself until my face was level with hers. “I earned my name well before meeting your son.”
The final strike came in the grand ballroom at noon. Vivian had invited all of her country-club friends to a large charity luncheon where she was set to give a speech about “helping the less fortunate” while being filmed by the local news cameras. I was going to give her a proper audience.
The crowd was thick, there was plenty of free wine to go around, and Vivian was up at the podium dressed like an angel. Suddenly, the enormous projection screens mounted on the walls turned on.
First, the clip from Claire appeared on a loop: “Finally got rid of the dead weight.” The crowd started murmuring.
Then the slides appeared: the fraudulent construction invoices, the wire transfers, the inflated budget, and the exact digital log showing Daniel downloading my company secrets late at night.
Vivian’s hands started shaking on the podium. Daniel stood up, sweating. “Maya, turn it off!”
I was standing at the back of the ballroom with a microphone in my hand. “For years, Vivian Mercer has been pretending to be a local saint. In reality, she has been pulling off a massive corporate embezzlement.”
Elise moved up beside me. “The police report was given to the fraud division at 9:00 AM.”
I looked directly into Daniel’s eyes. “And my husband assisted her by hacking my own computer. My divorce papers have been served one hour ago, along with a huge lawsuit.”
Daniel seemed like he was about to pass out. “Maya, please, we can discuss this!”
“Discuss? Like when your sister ruined my clothes and you thought it was funny? Or when you dumped me on the sidewalk like trash?”
Vivian had gone crazy, pointing at me and yelling, “You ungrateful bitch! You’re nothing without us!”
From the front table, the mayor’s wife stood up, horrified. “Vivian, I believe that you can be officially removed from the charity board right now.”
It was then that Mr. Han came in with two state troopers. Without making any kind of fuss, they placed her under arrest while all of the cameras recorded the exact moment her social life ended.
That same night, Claire had been cut off by all her influencer sponsors. Daniel’s company suspended him pending further investigations into his criminal acts. Vivian’s charity organization suspended her accounts and began an audit to look for the missing money.
Half a year after that, I sat in my office overlooking the ocean.
I looked at the golden gate where I was once banned from. It didn’t seem to be a place of humiliation any longer. It just seemed like the starting point of my real life.
“To a new beginning,” I said, and this time I really meant it.
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