It was one of those godless Sundays at the Godfrey estate, the kind that felt preserved in aspic—silent, saccharine, and stifling. The ancestral seat of the Montague Godfreys, Grantham Vale, loomed over the manicured acres of Hertfordshire like an insult carved into stone. Built during the reign of George III and refurbished every fifty years in the prevailing style of conquest, the estate was a paradox: both modern and medieval, both alive and embalmed. Gilded cornices wept under chandeliers, portraits of grim ancestors watched from velvet-lined walls, and the scent of waxed oak and entitlement hung in the air like a benediction.
Adrian arrived late, of course.
He did not walk so much as heaved himself from the waiting Bentley with the resigned air of someone attending his own funeral. The gravel crunched beneath his loafers. A sharp wind caught the hem of his coat as he passed beneath the Doric columns, and for the first time in days, he felt cold. He tugged at his collar. Strange how even wealth sometimes failed to warm you.
He was here by request—or rather, royal summons. His father had insisted the three children return to Grantham Vale for the quarterly "family review," a ritual more ceremonial than functional, in which the Godfrey heirs were expected to offer updates, insights, or (at the very least) the illusion of interest in the family's empire.
Inside the drawing room, lit by sconce and chandelier, Cassandra Elspeth Godfrey was already seated, draped in ivory and suspicion, her legs crossed like scissors. She held a tumbler of rye whisky, the same brand Adrian had taken to pouring by the gallon. On the opposite wingback chair reclined Julian Percival Godfrey, all curls and bone structure and irreverent apathy, leafing through a vintage Le Figaro as if the gathering were beneath him, which it probably was.
"Ah," Cassandra murmured without looking up. "The prodigal blob arrives."
Adrian smiled. Not the lazy, affable kind he used on models and maitre d's—but something thinner, bitterer, like a slit.
"Cassie," he drawled, letting the nickname drip with mock affection, "still pretending the think tank is saving the world?"
Cassandra's eyes flicked up, glacial and precise. "Still pretending you're a director?"
Julian snorted without lifting his eyes from the paper. "Mum said we weren't supposed to fight this time."
"Did she?" Cassandra replied. "How quaint."
Adrian sank into the leather sofa with all the grace of a deflating air mattress. The furniture creaked under his weight, an audible reminder of the years spent in hedonistic disregard for muscle tone.
"You're just upset," he said, lifting a silver biscuit tin and inspecting its contents, "because despite all your accomplishments, dear sister, I'm still the heir."
Cassandra didn't flinch. She simply sipped her whisky and said, "Heir? To what? A title you haven't earned and an empire you don't understand?"
Julian chimed in, deadpan. "To be fair, Adrian does understand the bar menu at Annabel's better than any CEO we know."
Adrian rolled his eyes, mouth full of almond biscotti. "That's rich coming from someone who thinks modern dance is a viable career path."
Julian finally looked up, his expression wry. "At least I don't cosplay nobility while contributing nothing."
There it was—the shared wound, oozing between every word: you are the chosen one, and we are not.
It had always hung between them, this strange familial blade—an ancient inheritance that bled merit and favor in unequal measure. Cassandra, the eldest and the most brilliant, had been quietly sidelined by a tradition that preferred male succession, her achievements praised but never rewarded. She had published papers in The Lancet before thirty, lectured on political economy at Cambridge, and now headed a think tank that advised five G20 governments. But all of it amounted to a consolation prize in the Godfrey order of things.
Julian, the youngest, was never in the running. Too whimsical, too artistic, too unwilling to bend to the cold metrics of legacy. He was the family's beautiful disappointment—sheltered from pressure but starved of relevance.
And Adrian—bloated, unmotivated Adrian—was the heir. Not by merit. Not by effort. But by decree. The crown had always been his, polished and waiting, whether he lifted a finger or not.
"I didn't ask for any of it," Adrian said, almost absently, as he dusted crumbs from his lap.
"No," Cassandra said, leaning forward now, voice taut as piano wire. "You didn't ask. But you didn't refuse it either. You enjoy it. You wallow in it. You bathe in the immunity of it while the rest of us rot in relevance."
Julian stood, stretched, and ambled toward the liquor cart. "We should just let him have it. Maybe he'll choke on it."
Adrian's smile slipped.
There was something sharper than usual in the air tonight—something ugly and unfiltered. It wasn't just sibling bickering. It was warfare, veiled in drawing-room civility.
"You both act like I haven't suffered," Adrian said, trying to summon the familiar veil of sarcasm. "Like this is some charmed life. As if I asked to be paraded around the City like a mascot for wealth gone wrong."
Cassandra scoffed. "You suffer only when the foie gras is overcooked."
Julian poured his drink. "Or when there's no champagne in the en suite minibar."
Adrian's jaw tightened.
He wanted, at that moment, to scream. To tell them about the nights where he lay staring at the ceiling, paralysed by a creeping sense of failure that no amount of silk or silver could suffocate. About how he hated the version of himself that waddled through Mayfair, bloated with calories and cowardice. About how every time he saw their father's face, lined with contempt and calculation, something inside him curled inward—because he knew. He knew he wasn't enough.
But pride is a strange creature. It would sooner let you drown than let you beg.
"I may not be perfect," Adrian said, forcing calm, "but at least I don't live in the delusion that I'm entitled to something I was never promised."
"You weren't promised," Cassandra hissed, her calm finally splintering. "You were gifted. Like a Christmas stocking stuffed with old power and new money. Don't you dare mistake that for destiny."
Adrian stood abruptly, the motion awkward but sudden. "You think I want to inherit this? You think it's a joy to be told your life's worth is already calculated and you just have to pretend not to be a disappointment?"
Silence.
Even Julian stilled.
There was a flash of something in Cassandra's eyes. Not pity. Not empathy. Recognition, perhaps—but buried too deep to bloom.
"I don't envy you," she said finally, her voice returning to its cold cadence. "I pity you. Because when Father dies, and the empire becomes yours, we'll all get to watch you burn it from the inside out."
Adrian stared at her. For a moment, something flickered behind his eyes—guilt, anger, sorrow—but it vanished, buried beneath layers of wine, cholesterol, and twenty-three years of unbroken insulation from consequence.
Then he turned, slow and deliberate, and left the room without another word.
Behind him, the fire crackled in the hearth. Glasses clinked. The Godfrey siblings returned to their positions on the board of familial bitterness, bound together not by love, but by lineage—a crown of thorns each refused to relinquish, even if it cut them to the bone.
But upstairs, alone in his old bedroom—larger than most flats, untouched since prep school—Adrian stared into the mirror.
And for the first time, he wondered what it might be like to earn what was already his.
Or whether it was already too late.