My father, Richard Vance, a billionaire tech CEO who managed his public image with the discipline of a military commander, strode toward my shaded corner.

There was nothing fatherly in the way he approached me. He carried the sharp smell of expensive gin and and his jaw was tight enough to make the muscles in his cheeks jump.

“Could you make even the smallest effort not to look like a grieving widow?” he muttered through clenched teeth, his cold eyes darting across the lawn to ensure no investors or society columnists were observing our interaction.

He set down far too hard a crystal glass of sparkling water onto the small glass table in front of me. “This is an important day for your sister, Maya. I am begging you, for once in your life, do not ruin the aesthetic.”

I did not move, my eyes tracking the carbonated bubbles rising quickly in the glass. The aesthetic. In the Vance household, appearance was treated like a religion.

I was the flaw they could not hide or remove, the uncomfortable mark on an otherwise flawless family portrait. To compensate for their lack of affection—and their the disgust they barely bothered to hide—Richard and my mother, Eleanor, paid for a distant city apartment and my university tuition.

It was a simple arrangement: they provided the funds, and I agreed to keep my ruined flesh out from their high-society galas and holiday photographs.

Meanwhile, they spoiled Chloe until entitlement became part of her personality.