THE WRONG BROTHER’S OBSESSION.

Isabel’s POV.

My mother always said beauty is a weapon. Today, I feel less like a weapon and more like a lamb being polished before slaughter.

My mother yanks the corset strings like she’s trying to wring my breath out of me.

“Breathe in,” she orders.

“I already can’t,” I croak, clutching the edge of the vanity. If she tightens any further, they’ll find me passed out on the floor.

My breath stutters, ribs hurting as though I’m being punished for existing.

“Beauty is pain,” she says, lips thin with disapproval. “And today, Isabel, you must be beautiful.”

I stare at the mirror, at the stranger blinking back. The black dress clings too tight across my ribs, my hair is scraped into a glossy knot that feels more like a helmet than a style, and my lips are painted red like a damn warning sign.

I look like someone else. Someone who belongs in a room full of billionaires. Not me.

My voice comes out small, weaker than I want. “What’s today?”

Mother doesn’t answer immediately. She’s fastening a necklace at my throat, the pearls cold against my skin. Her silence is worse than her words. Finally, she says, “You’re to meet Damien Sterling.”

I choke. “The Damien Sterling?”

“As if there were another,” she replies dryly. “The eldest son. Heir to the Sterling fortune. He will be your husband.”

My pulse trips. “Excuse me?”

Her annoyed gaze meets mine in the mirror. “This is not up for debate. Our family is on the brink of ruin, Isabel. This marriage will secure us. It’s your duty.”

My duty. Like I’m a soldier marching to war, except instead of a weapon, I have rouge on my cheeks and my ribcage is collapsing under the strength of the corset.

“But I have never even—” My voice cracks. I sound ridiculous, like a child about to throw a tantrum.

“Mother, I don’t know him.”

“You don’t need to know him,” she snaps. “You need to marry him.”

I laugh, brittle and hollow. “Well, that’s comforting. You truly are the best"

Her hand flies so fast I flinch, though she doesn’t hit me. She just lets her palm hover in the air, trembling with restrained fury. “Do not embarrass me, Isabel.”

The lump in my throat is huge. I swallow it down, because what else can I do? Fight? Run? I’ve never been good at fighting, and running has never been an option. So instead, I nod. Because that’s what I do. I bend. I fold. And still, it never seems enough.

I am the daughter of a business man—nothing but a stepping stone. We are not loved. We are traded.

“Our family is hanging by a thread. Do you want to see your father lose everything? Do you want your brother thrown out of school? This is bigger than you.” She goes on like she isn’t wrecking a storm in me.

I press my trembling hands into my lap. The truth is, I don’t want any of those things. I also don't want to be the sacrificial lamb for my family. My throat burns with the injustice of it.

The Sterling estate is huge. Marble everywhere like they know nothing else. Chandelier dripping with light, walls lined with paintings older than my family line. Everything smells expensive—aged wine, polished wood, money.

My heels echo too loudly on the floor as I follow my parents into the house. I keep my eyes down, pretending not to feel the weight of the Sterlings gaze.

Anyone would be able to be traded off into this family but not me. Never me.

"Have your seats. We prepared a feast" An older man said directing us to the dining area.

We follow him.

Then I see him.

Damien Sterling.

He sits at the head of the table, in a black suit. His deep green eyes looking across the room without ever lingering on me and I have never felt so little.

He doesn’t need to look at me to make me feel small.

Yet I have never seen beautiful eyes like those.

I remind myself to breathe. To sit straight. To smile, even if my cheeks feel like they’re going to crack.

My father clears his throat, voice loud. “We are honored to join our families tonight. Isabel will marry Damien, securing a strong future for us all.”

i struggle to breathe. There it is, said aloud, sealed with the other family agreeing.

I drop my fork and force myself to glance at Damien, searching for some reaction. A nod. A faint smile. Even disgust would be something.

Instead, he leans back in his chair, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. His voice is smooth, carrying through the room with effortless disdain.

“I don’t need a wife. Certainly not her.”

The words shatter me and probably my mother. My mother's wine glass clinked against the marble table as her hand trembled.

I didn't move. My lungs simply refused to work. My pulse slams in my ears, my stomach lurches.

Certainly not her.

Heat rushed to my cheeks, humiliation spreading like wildfire. My spine locked and my trembling hand found the heavy linen napkin in my lap. I began to twist the fabric, slow at first, then harder, pulling at the thread count with desperate, tugs. I needed the resistance, the small, specific effort to ground myself.

This is the part where strong women deliver fiery speeches, where they storm out with heads high. But me? My throat was burning, my eyes stinging, and all I could manage was a fierce concentration on the single, chipped pearl on my mother’s necklace, praying I could stop the tears before they made it down my cheeks.

Of course. Why would he want me?

I stare at the floor until it all I can see. If I breathe, I’ll cry.

I want to scream. To ask why I’m not enough. To demand he take those words back. But instead, my lips curve into something brittle and false.

I should stay silent. Instead, my mouth betrays me.

“Well,” I pushed the word out past the lump in my throat, trying for humor “at least we’re skipping the honeymoon phase.”

Someone choked on their wine across the table. My mother’s fingers dig into my skin, her threat clear.

I want the ground to open and swallow me whole.

And then his father’s voice cracks through me like a whip.

“Damien.” The name is a weapon fashioned against me. “What the hell was that?”

My head jerks up despite myself. Disbelief that he was standing up for me.

Damien doesn’t even flinch. He leans back in his chair, still swirling the amber liquid in his glass as though he’s lounging in a bar, not ruining my life in front of two families.

“It was honesty,” he says, without any care. “You should try it sometime.”

His mother’s diamond necklace flashes as she sits forward, eyes narrowing. “You humiliated that girl.” Her chin tilts toward me like I’m the problem. That girl. Not Isabel. Not even my future daughter-in-law. Just that girl.

Her voice cuts deeper. “You humiliated us.”

I want to speak. Argue. But my voice is buried under shame.

His father’s jaw is hard. His whole face is. “Do you have any idea what this marriage means for the family?”

Damien finally lifts his gaze, and it lands on me for the first time. My stomach drops. His eyes are glacial, assessing. And then, dismissive. Like I’m some furniture he made a wrong purchase for.

“Yes,” he says, gaze flicking back to his father. “It means shackling me to a trembling woman who would be eaten alive in this house.”

i flinch at the insult.

My mother’s nails press harder into my arm under the table, another silent warning clear: Don’t you dare cry.

I try to swallow the sob clawing up my throat. I taste salt.

“She doesn’t need to last,” his father growls. “She needs to serve her purpose. A Hart alliance will stabilize everything after—” He cuts himself short, but I catch the twitch of his jaw, the flash of something ugly.

So that’s all I am. Stabilizer. Leverage. Currency.

Damien’s chair scrapes back. He stands, towering over us all, fury flickering beneath his calm demeanor. 

“No. What’s required is that I lead this family, not parade a fragile girl on my arm to appease your ego. I don’t need her. And I won’t be forced.”

Fragile girl. Trembling woman. It’s almost impressive, how many ways one man can say worthless without ever using the word.

My face burns, my chest aches, but still—still my treacherous brain whispers that he finally looked at me.

His mother’s hand slams against the table. “You are the heir, Damien! You don’t get to want. You do what’s required.”

And I realize she is no different from my mother. Selfish. Greedy. Unbearable.

And for once, I almost root for him. He looks wild, cornered, every inch of a heir who doesn’t want his crown. But then he says, coldly “Better than playing house with her.”

Her. Always her. Never Isabel.

His father yells, voice booming from across the table. “Enough! This is not about pride. It’s about the Sterling legacy.”

Legacy.

I hate the word. Legacies crush people like me without ever noticing.

He straightens his cufflinks. “Then let Adrian play house with her. I’ll keep my freedom.”

And he walks out.

The echo of the slammed door rattles through me, louder than my heartbeat.

No one looks at me. No one asks how I feel. My humiliation is just another course cleared from the table.

The silence stretches like a blade against my neck until Damien’s younger brother clears his throat.

Adrian Sterling. He offered a smile, little but feels like a lot in a table that no one had even bothered to look at me.

He’s everything Damien isn’t—warm eyes, softer lines, a mouth that actually knows how to curve into a smile.

“If my brother refuses,” Adrian says, “then I’ll marry her.”

The words hit like a slap.

I turn to him, stunned. His gaze holds mine—steady, kind, but pitying. Always pity.

And just like that, the deal is salvaged. I’m rerouted like damaged goods, handed off to the spare instead of the heir.

No one asks what I want. No one notices the humiliation burning my insides raw.

I nod, because nodding is all I have ever done. “Of course,” I whisper, though my voice is barely there.

Because inside, I am unraveling.

I am Isabel Hart: the weak daughter, the bargaining chip, the girl who jokes when she should cry. The girl who thought she couldn’t feel smaller until Damien Sterling proved her wrong.

And as Adrian smiles at me warmly, as my family celebrates the new alliance. One truth is clear.

This isn’t salvation. It’s the beginning of my ruin.