His Favoritism Finally Broke Me

At the engagement party, the hotel went dark.

I stepped on a shattered champagne glass, and the cut on my ankle bled instantly.

Around me people gasped, and without thinking I called out for Denys James.

He heard me. I know he heard me. And he went straight past me, rushing down to Hailey Winfield at the foot of the stage.

When the emergency lights came up, I saw him with her gathered against him, his voice low. "Did it scare you?"

The emcee froze onstage, then offered quietly, "Mr. James, Ms. Fox is hurt too."

Only then did Denys turn.

He saw the blood by my feet, and his brow barely twitched.

"Hailey's claustrophobic. Could you not fight for attention at a moment like this?"

In that instant, the whole hall went silent.

Denys was famously cold in the industry, and Hailey was the one exception.

They'd grown up together. One word from her that she was afraid of the dark, and he'd walk out on a seven-figure contract to get to her.

I'd been engaged to him for three years. I'd helped him care for his paralyzed mother. I'd even given up a chance to train abroad, for the sake of the Jamess.

He always said it. "You're steady. You're not like Hailey, you don't need looking after."

It took until tonight for me to understand.

Steady just meant I could be wronged and no one had to soothe me.

Fiance just meant I was the one he could comfortably sacrifice.

Hailey pushed him away, crying. "Denys, go check on her, please."

But he looked at me instead, impatience thick in his voice. "Drop the face. There are a lot of people here tonight. Show some sense."

I looked down at my blood-stained wedding shoes and reached up to slide off the engagement ring.

"Denys James. This time, I won't be sensible."

The ring hit the floor, and his expression went cold all the way through.

"Sally Fox, are you done making a scene?"

I bent down and picked up my shoe.

Blood ran from my ankle down my calf and onto the white hem of my dress, staining it like a wound torn open.

Hailey stood behind him, shoulders shaking with sobs.

"Sally, I'm sorry, this is all my fault."

Denys steadied her at once. "You don't need to apologize."

When he looked back at me, all that was left in his eyes was a warning.

"With this many elders here, you really have to embarrass everyone?"

I let out a small laugh.

So I get hurt, and I'm the one embarrassing people, the one with no sense of the bigger picture.

My parents sat at the head table, their faces dark as a storm.

My mother started to rise, and my father held her down. I shook my head at them.

Then I told the emcee, "The engagement party is cancelled."

The hall erupted.

Edwina James shot to her feet in alarm.

"Sally, let's talk this through. Don't do anything rash."

I didn't look at her. I carried my shoe and limped toward the door.

Behind me came Denys's voice, low and pressed flat. "Sally Fox, walk out that door today, and don't you regret it."

I paused. I didn't turn around.

"I won't be the one with regrets."

But the one who came after me wasn't him. It was Hailey.

She held up the hem of her gown, breathless from running.

"Sally, you really have it wrong. I was so scared when the lights went out. I didn't grab Denys on purpose."

I looked at her.

"You didn't grab him on purpose. So the lighting program for the party, someone changed that for you too?"

The color drained from Hailey's face.

I'd only been bluffing. But that flash of panic made something in my chest drop.

She lowered her head fast, her voice softer still.

"I just wanted to surprise you. The hotel said they could add a blackout light show. I never thought anything would go wrong."

Before I could say a word, Denys had walked out.

He took off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

"It's cold out here. Go inside."

Hailey clutched at his sleeve and looked at me, timid.

"Denys, does she hate me now?"

Denys spared me a glance.

"She's in no state to listen to reason right now."

When those words landed, the ache in my ankle somehow dulled.

I took a cab to the studio.

Lucretia Swanson was still pulling overtime, and when I pushed the door open she nearly dumped her coffee onto her keyboard.

"Weren't you getting engaged tonight? How did you end up like this?"

I dropped my bag on the desk.

"Called it off."

She crouched to look at my foot and swore under her breath.

Then she hauled me straight to the nearest ER.

The doctor picked out a small sliver of glass, put in two stitches, and told me to keep it dry for the next few days.

I'd just gotten back to the studio when my phone lit up.

A text from Denys: Hailey's falling apart. I'm taking her home first. Handle the wound yourself.

Lucretia read it and let out a bitter laugh.

"Who exactly did he get engaged to today?"

I didn't answer.

When the antiseptic hit the cut, the pain made my fingers dig into the edge of the desk.

Half an hour later, Denys showed up.

He came through the door looking worn out, as if I were the one who'd put him through all of this.

He walked up to me and reached out, on reflex, to ruffle my hair.

"Still hurts?"

I turned my head away.

His hand stopped in midair.

"Sally, enough of this."

I looked up.

"Did you look into it?"

"Into what?"

"The blackout."

He frowned.

"The hotel's wiring is old. I'll send someone to deal with it tomorrow."

I held his gaze.

"Hailey said she changed the lighting cues."

He was quiet for a second.

"She wanted to surprise you."

I laughed.

"So the surprise turned into an accident, I get hurt, and she's innocent."

"Can you stop coming after Hailey?"

His voice dropped.

"She already feels terrible about it."

My chest went tight, like the air had been pressed out of it.

After a long moment, I said, "Denys. The engagement's off."

He looked at me the way you'd look at a child throwing a tantrum.

"Because I went to check on Hailey first tonight?"

"No."

I said it word by word. "Because you go to her first every single time."

The air went still.

My phone rang. It was my dad.

When I picked up, his voice was rough. "Come home, sweetheart. Your mom made you a bowl of pasta."

My eyes went hot in an instant.

"Dad."

"Mm?"

"Denys won't be coming around anymore."

The line went silent for a few seconds.

Then my dad said,

"Good. He's not welcome in this house anymore either."

When I got home, my mom knelt in front of the couch to redo the bandage.

Her hands shook so badly the cotton swab kept slipping.

"How did it cut so deep?"

I said, "A glass broke."

She didn't ask anything else, just bent down and blew gently on the wound.

At the table, my dad kept piling food onto my plate.

My mom watched me with red eyes.

I set down my fork.

"Dad, Mom. I don't want to get married."

My mom's tears spilled over at once.

My dad's face was grim.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

He pushed the soup toward me.

"Then you don't."

I froze.

His voice dropped lower. "We raised you for twenty-some years. Not so you could go to someone else's house and learn to swallow your pride."

My tears dropped into the bowl.

The truth was, I should have understood a long time ago.

Three years ago, when Denys's company was barely surviving, I was the one who drove with him from one building-materials plant to the next.

After his mother's stroke, I was the one who went to the hospital every week to sit through her rehab.

The day I got my spot to study abroad, he held me at the airport.

"Sally, wait for me. Once the company's steady, I'll see you off myself."

After that, the James Group steadied, and Hailey came back.

She wanted to build a home-decor channel, so Denys handed her the model units to shoot, let her cherry-pick the best brand deals, and had me stay up rewriting her scripts.

I asked him once. "Don't you think she's getting too far into our lives?"

He didn't even look up.

"Be the bigger person. Hailey just got back, she doesn't have anyone else."

So I was the bigger person, for a long time. Long enough to forget I could hurt too.

The next day, I went into the office.

I printed two documents.

One was a request to terminate the engagement-home design commission. The other was a notice withdrawing from the Southgate Hotel project team.

Lucretia saw them and set a coffee down on my desk.

"You're really leaving?"

"Yeah."

"And you're okay with that?"

I signed my name.

"No. But it's time I gave myself back to myself."

At noon the cafeteria was packed.

I'd barely sat down when Hailey carried her tray over and took the seat across from me.

There were shadows under her eyes, like she'd cried all night.

"Sally, does your foot still hurt?"

I didn't answer.

She pushed a bottle of yogurt toward me.

"Denys said this is your favorite."

I looked at the yogurt.

I used to think it meant Denys remembered what I liked.

Later I learned he could recite that Hailey didn't eat cilantro down to the letter, but he could never seem to remember I'm lactose intolerant.

Hailey bit her lip.

"Last night Denys drove me to the hotel. We were up working on the Southgate plan."

I looked up.

"The hotel?"

She seemed to catch herself and rushed to explain.

"It's not what you think. I was too scared to be alone, so Denys stayed out in the living room with me."

Then, quieter, she added, "He's actually really worried about you."

Footsteps behind me. Denys set a box of medicine on my desk.

"Anti-inflammatories. Take them on schedule."

Hailey tilted her face up at him, her voice going soft.

"See? I told you Sally wouldn't really be angry."

Denys glanced at me.

"She just talks tough."

Hailey gave a light little laugh.

"I bet you last night that she'd cry."

Denys said flatly, "You lost."

He looked down at me.

"Our Sally's grown some nerve lately. She'll even blow up her own engagement party."

Listening to the two of them play off each other, I felt sick.

My wound, my humiliation, the ring I'd pulled off in front of everyone, all of it had become a joke in their mouths.

I set down my chopsticks.

"Denys."

He looked at me.

I said it calmly. "Let's break up."

For a beat, the cafeteria went quiet.

Hailey's eyes reddened at once.

"Sally, is it because of me?"

Denys cut her off. "You don't need to explain."

He watched me, his face cooling.

"Sally Fox, are you done making a scene?"

I picked up my tray.

"Done. So this is where it ends."

That afternoon the whole company was passing around the news that I'd called off the engagement.

Lucretia leaned in and dropped her voice. "Hailey was livestreaming a model unit just now, and a client's wife called her a homewrecker right there on camera."

My pen stopped.

"And then?"

"She took a fall. Denys carried her off to the hospital."

Lucretia scoffed.

"The whole performance, you'd think she'd broken a bone."

I was quiet for a few seconds.

"Did she hurt her hand?"

Lucretia gaped at me. "Sally, have they actually scrambled your brain?"

I didn't say anything.

Hailey lives off that account. If her hand was hurt, that really would be a problem.

I went to the hospital anyway.

The door stood open, Hailey propped up in bed and the bandage was on her knee, nowhere near the hand I'd come about.

Denys was bent over her, twisting the cap off a water bottle.

He went still when he saw me.

Hailey spoke first. "Sally. You came."

I crossed the room.

"Is it bad?"

She shook her head.

"Just a scraped knee."

I had barely let out a breath when Denys's voice cut in. "Satisfied now?"

I looked up.

"Sorry?"

He set the bottle down on the table.

"If you hadn't made such a scene about calling off the engagement, do you think Hailey would have been this off on her livestream today?"

"If the client hadn't gone after her in front of everyone, would she have fallen?"

I stood there for a few seconds, just making sure I'd heard him right.

"Denys, you think this is my fault?"

"Isn't it?"

His voice went cold. "You know how fragile she is, and you still dragged this through the whole company."

Hailey grabbed his arm. "Denys, don't say that."

He ignored her.

"Sally, I always thought you knew how to handle yourself. That you understood limits."

"And now?"

"Now you'd rather make everyone in the room miserable than back down."

Something in my chest went numb.

"So she gets torn into by a client, and that's on me?"

"She falls, and that's on me too?"

Denys frowned. "Do you have to be so snide about it?"

I looked at him.

"I'm just finishing your sentence for you."

Hailey's tears spilled over. "Sally, I'm sorry. I never wanted the two of you to fight."

It was always this.

She cried, and Denys decided the whole world owed her room to step back.

Me included.

I took a step back.

"Denys, I'll say this one last time."

"The engagement's off. The collaboration's off."

"Whoever you protect from now on has nothing to do with me."

The last warmth left his eyes.

"Sally, don't push me into making this ugly for you in public."

I smiled.

"Don't worry. I won't give you the chance."

As I walked out of the room, I heard Hailey ask softly, "Denys, has she decided she doesn't want me as a friend anymore?"

Denys said, "It's just her temper flaring up. Give it two cold days and she'll come around."

I didn't slow down. Two cold days, sure.

When a heart goes cold all the way through, it doesn't warm back up.

For the next two weeks, Denys didn't come to me.

But the talk about him and Hailey never let up.

People said he drove her to every shoot himself.

For the Southgate Hotel promo, Denys asked for her by name to be on camera.

Someone else said her sponsorship rates had tripled.

Lucretia slapped the desk, furious.

"One fall, and she lands herself right in the heart of the project."

I kept my head down, reworking a drawing.

"Let her."

"You're really not bothered?"

I paused.

"I am."

But I wasn't turning back.

That afternoon, Hailey came to the design department.

White dress, eyes rimmed red.

"Sally."

I didn't look up.

"Miss Winfield. Did you need something?"

Her expression froze for an instant.

"You never used to call me that."

"My eyes used to be worse."

The coworkers around us kept typing, heads down, ears wide open.

Hailey bit her lip. "Denys's stomach has been acting up these past few days. Don't stay angry with him over this."

I lifted my eyes.

"If his stomach's acting up, you should take him to a hospital, not come find me."

The tears fell at once.

"I only wanted to give you both a way out of this."

"Sally, after all these years together, why let it come to this over me?"

I looked at her.

"Hailey. Stop painting yourself as so innocent."

"You know exactly who he'll choose. That's why you always cry at precisely the right moment."

The color drained from her face.

"I don't."

A little way off, Denys came toward us.

"Hailey, come here."

His eyes on me were like ice.

"Don't interrupt her work."

Hailey lowered her head and went to his side.

In that moment, the whole thing struck me as absurd.

I was the one who'd been hurt. Yet in Denys's eyes, the one wronged was always her.

That evening was the final review for the Southgate Hotel project.

As lead designer, I was responsible for the entire scheme.

Ten minutes before the presentation, Denys informed me: "Hailey will open."

I frowned. "She doesn't know the figures."

"She's our promotional partner. She needs visibility."

"This is a final review, not her livestream."

His face went dark.

"Sally, don't drag your personal feelings into the work."

I nearly laughed out loud.

The meeting was already underway.

Hailey took the floor, her voice tight.

The first half went smoothly enough, until the client asked:

"The fireproof paneling for the family-care floor. Which version are you using?"

Hailey had the wrong document open.

"Standard wood veneer."

My stomach went cold. That was Class A fire-rated paneling.

The family-care floor fell under safety compliance. There was no room for error.

I was on my feet at once.

"Excuse me, let me add something here"

"Sit down."

Denys's voice came cold, and I froze where I stood.

The client's representative had already darkened.

"Standard wood veneer?"

"Is James Group joking around with safety on a family-care floor?"

After the meeting, only the three of us were left in the room.

Denys shut the door, and his first words were:

"Sally, is this how you do your job as lead designer?"

I stared at him, unable to believe it.

"Hailey was the one who got it wrong just now."

"You were in charge of the materials."

"I gave her the correct version."

Hailey's tears spilled over.

"Denys, I didn't mean to. I was just so nervous."

He didn't so much as glance at her. His eyes stayed fixed on me.

"You knew it was her first time in a room like that. Why didn't you walk her through it beforehand?"

Something in me cooled, inch by inch.

"So you want me to take the fall."

He pushed an incident statement across the table.

"Sign it."

I looked at the page.

It read: Lead Designer Sally Fox failed to verify materials, resulting in an inaccurate presentation.

I lifted my head.

"Why?"

His tone was level. "Hailey's commercial contract went public today. She can't have anything go wrong right now."

"And me?"

He was silent for a second.

"You're different."

"Different how?"

He said, "You're my fiance."

I looked at him, and the last bit of warmth in me went cold too.

So a fiance wasn't the one you protected. She was the one best suited to be sacrificed.