The air in the Walton Grand Ballroom didn't feel like oxygen; it felt like pressurized gold. It was thick, heavy, and tasted of the vintage champagne being poured into crystal flutes that cost more than a commoner's education.
I stood behind the velvet curtain, my hands steady despite the storm raging in my chest. For twenty-four years, I had been the FACELESS HEIRESS. My father had scrubbed my image from every social media platform and blurred my face in every childhood gala photo. He had raised me as a ghost so that when the day came to pick the man who would rule the Walton Empire by my side, I wouldn't be blinded by a suitor's rehearsed smile.
I had spent the last ninety-nine days in the dirt. I had scrubbed toilets in Connecticut, frozen in the Canadian wilderness, endured the humid insults of a Parisian atelier, and walked the tech-halls of Mumbai. At last today was Day 100. The day the ghost heiress finally had a face.
"Isabel," Jax's voice crackled in my earpiece. My loyal shadow. My protector.
"The five heirs have arrived. Silas and Lucian are already on the dais. They look like they've already won."
"Let them gloat, Jax," I whispered, adjusting the heavy silk of my midnight-blue gown. It felt like armor. "The higher they climb, the harder the pavement hits."
I stepped through the curtain. The silence was instantaneous. It wasn't a polite hush; it was the sound of three hundred hearts stopping at once. The FACELESS HEIRESS was no longer a myth.
As I walked down the center aisle, my heels clicking like a countdown on the marble floor, I saw them. The five. They stood in a semi-circle at the foot of the stage, each looking more gallant and ravishing than the last. They had brought gifts. Gold-leafed contracts, rare jewels, promises of mergers that would shake the globe. But I didn't look at the jewels. I looked at their eyes.
Sterling Koch. The 'PRINCE OF METRICS', stood on the far left, his posture clinical and his Ivy League face a mask of calculated interest, now I'd say was mixed with a bit of awe and confusion as he stared at me.
Beside him was Alistair Thomson, The 'KING OF THE NORTH', the Canadian looking rugged in a bespoke suit that couldn't hide the predatory glint in his eyes. The same eyes that had watched me shiver in the snow without offering a blanket.
Julien Arnault, The 'AESTHETE OF PARIS', stood with a smirk, his artistic gaze sweeping over my gown as if he was already mentally redesigning me to fit his taste.
Then there was Kenji Son. The 'LEGITIMATE HEIR' of the Son bloodline. He was draped in flashy silk, his face flushed with the arrogance of a man who believed his name alone made him a god.
He looked at me with a hunger that made my skin crawl. The same way he had looked at the whores he brought into the estate while I, the maid, changed his bedsheets.
And finally, Vikram Ambani. He stood tall, regal, and silent. He was the only one whose gaze held a flicker of something human, perhaps regret? Recognition? For a heartbeat, my breath hitched. Vikram was a good man. If I hadn't seen the truth of the world, I might have been happy with him.
"Isabel Walton," my Uncle Silas's voice boomed from the stage. He stood next to my cousin, Lucian, whose smug grin was wide enough to split his face.
"The clock has struck. According to your father's decree and the contract you signed, you must now present your choice. Who will stand by your side as you inherit the Walton Empire?"
I climbed the stairs, the train of my dress whispering against the stone. Then, I turned to face the men.
"Sterling," I said, my voice projecting to every corner of the hall. The Koch heir stepped forward, a confident smile tugging at his lips.
"You view marriage as a corporate merger. You told your father on Day 12 that I was a 'necessary asset to be liquidated after the merger.' You didn't realize the maid cleaning your office was the asset you were so eager to destroy."
His face went ashen. The room gasped.
"Alistair," I moved to the next. "You value strength, yet you leave the 'weak' to freeze. You watched a maid stumble in a blizzard on your retreat and didn't lift a finger. You aren't a king. You're a bully with a title."
One by one, I dismantled them. I stripped away their billion-dollar suits and exposed the rot beneath. When I got to Kenji Son, I didn't hold back.
"Kenji, you speak of pure lineage, yet your soul is filthy. I saw the way you treated those you deemed 'beneath' you. You are a small man in a very large suit. And not just that, you can't seem to control that thing between your legs. You change women like diapers"
I finally stopped in front of Vikram. The room was deathly quiet now. My uncle was gripping the podium so hard his knuckles were white.
"Vikram Ambani," I said softly. The audience leaned in. "You are a good man. You treated me with dignity when you thought I was nothing.".
As I finally gave a good comment about an heir, I noticed uncle Silas froze. His glass was rattling against the table as his smug look vanished into a pale, wide-eyed stare. Beside him, Lucian's face turned a dark, angry red, his knuckles white as he realized the Walton throne he had done everything within his power to steal from me, would slip through his fingers if I made this choice.
"In another life, I would have chosen you." I said, landing it like a time bomb.
A murmur of shock rippled through the crowd. The silence didn't just break; it shattered into a thousand frantic whispers. People leaned into one another, their faces illuminated by the glow of a hundred smartphone screens recording my every word.
"Did she just reject him?" a woman in a shimmering Dior gown hissed to her husband. "He was the only one she spoke well of!"
"She's insane," a tech mogul muttered, shaking his head. "She's throwing away the most stable alliance in the book. Does she want Lucian to win?"
"Look… Look at Arthur," someone else whispered, pointing toward the podium.
"He's completely frozen," another voice added.
"She doesn't even care about her father's health. What kind of daughter are you?" Another voice echoed this time.
"If not the 'good man,' then who?" a reporter breathed into a hidden microphone. "Is there a sixth player we don't know about?"
The confusion was thick enough to choke on. They had expected a coronation, but I was giving them a demolition.
I looked at my cousin, then at the cameras broadcasting this to the financial capitals of the world.
"I will not be bullied into a marriage of convenience," I declared. "I went looking for a husband, but I found something better. I found a man who saw me when I was invisible". At this point the whole hall was quiet again.
"A man who worked with his hands while these heirs played with their toys. I would rather settle for a man with no title. A man with the heart of gold"
I felt the tears prickling my eyes. I had invited him. I had sent the message this morning. But as I scanned the back of the room, all I saw were reporters and security. He wasn't there. My heart sank. I was about to lose everything; the empire, my father's legacy all for a man who hadn't shown up.
"It's over, Isabel!" Lucian laughed, stepping toward the center of the stage. "She's forfeited! The Walton Empire is mine!"