Chapter 6 - The Sterling Estate
A week later,
Owen drove me to Connecticut.
The drive was long,
winding through lush forests and rolling hills.
As we pulled through the wrought-iron gates of the Sterling estate,
I felt a strange sense of homecoming.
The house was magnificent,
a gray stone manor overlooking a private lake.
It didn't feel like a museum.
It felt like it was breathing.
"Your mother loved that terrace,"
Owen said,
pointing to a stone balcony draped in wisteria.
"She used to sit there and read for hours."
I walked through the rooms,
touching the velvet curtains and the mahogany bookshelves.
I saw the library where my grandfather had built his empire.
I saw the nursery where my mother had spent her first nights.
And then,
in a small room at the top of the stairs,
I found it.
An old wooden desk,
identical to the one I used in Miami.
On the desk was a notebook,
worn at the edges,
filled with expenses and plans.
My mother had been a tracker,
too.
She had planned her escape with the same meticulous detail I used to plan Harold's galas.
I realized then that I hadn't become Anastasia Prescott because of Harold.
I had been a Sterling all along.
The discipline,
the organization,
the quiet strength—it was in my blood.
Harold hadn't "made" me.
He had just borrowed me.
Owen stood in the doorway,
watching me.
"How does it feel?"
"It feels right,"
I said,
running my hand over the notebook.
"It feels like I’ve been holding my breath for thirty years,"
"And I can finally exhale."
"What will you do now?"
I looked out the window at the lake.
"I’m going to start a foundation,"
I said.
"A real one."
"One that helps women who have been made to feel invisible."
"I’m going to use the Sterling name to build something that lasts."
"And Harold?"
I smiled.
"Harold is history."
The news had broken that morning.
Harold Prescott had stepped down from his foundation citing "health reasons."
The public apology had been brief,
but it was there.
He was a man without a country,
living in a small apartment in Fort Lauderdale,
his accounts frozen by the IRS.
May you like
He was finally the useless one.
And I was finally free.
