Chapter 1

After working five years as Ethan Moore's ghost architect, he once again handed off the position of the project lead to someone else.

As usual, he dangled the carrot in my face. “Think about the bigger picture, Arya. Just wait a little longer. Until the firm’s next round of funding, and we get listed on the stock market, I promise I’ll make you the lead architect of the next project…”

When I was twenty-one, I was a fool who willingly staked everything in an uncertain future with him. Now, I am twenty-eight. Years of waiting and endless revisions of blueprints had whittled away all the love and courage I once had.

I packed up my portfolio and gave up on my lifelong dream of becoming an architect in Manhattan. I gave up on him as well.

I’m not waiting anymore, Ethan.

Chapter 1

At an Architecture Awards ceremony in New York, the ballroom of a luxury hotel located in Midtown Manhattan was filled to the brim with business elites. They fashioned themselves in all varieties of luxury name brands.

Ethan stood underneath the spotlight with a deep-set look in his eyes, eyes that easily mesmerized countless Ivy League girls. He surveyed the floor before crowning the design of Sophie Vanderbilt as the winner of the competition.

I gripped my champagne glass so tightly that my knuckles turned white. Soon, the crowd rose into a standing ovation.

This was my fifth year as a ghost architect. It was also the final year of the laborious contract I had signed with Moore Architects. The contract signed was “Terms of Promotion for Senior Partnership.”

My boyfriend, Ethan Moore, was the head juror of the competition. He had crowned the twenty-three-year-old Sophie Vanderbilt, the daughter of a real estate tycoon, with an impressive score of 92.8. Just like that, he propped her on the stage and practically shoved me off a cliff.

Sophie stepped off the stage in a regal haute couture gown designed by Valentino. Her Jimmy Choo high heels clicked against the tiles while she advanced straight towards me.

“Oh my god, Arya, I’m so sorry…” Her sparkling blue eyes shone innocently as she spoke, suggesting greater talent in acting than architecture.

“I never expected to win,” she lamented.

Then, Ethan approached us with a hand tucked in his suit pocket. He stated proudly, “Sophie, when has a winner ever lowered themselves to apologize?”

He paused briefly to sweep a look over me, but he did not let his gaze linger.

“Arya, she’s a newcomer. Let her have it. You know how important this is for the firms’ funding. There’s always next time for you.”

They stood as a pair over me.

Sophie smiled radiantly with Ethan’s arm hovering protectively behind her. Standing together, they looked like the picture-perfect power couple stamped on the cover of a magazine.

I stared intently into Ethan’s eyes, trying to see if there was any resemblance of guilt or aversion in his eyes. However, I could not find it.

He had truly forgotten what happened during the winter five years ago when he desperately needed money for his startup. At the time, my grandfather, who was my only relative back then, was diagnosed with a heart condition in California. The medical bills were exorbitant and piled up faster than I could blink. That was the lead-up to me desperately signing that six-year-long, exploitative contract with the firm.

If I managed to win an international award within six years, the firm would award me with five hundred thousand dollars and grant me a partnership to boot. Otherwise, I would have to resign and reimburse the firm for all the “investments” they had poured into me over the years.

With the contract, I managed to put together a miracle and secure both Ethan’s capital for a startup and money for my grandfather’s medical bills.

I had staked everything on this gamble. In the final year contract, it was a mere 0.1 point gap decided by Ethan, who shattered my hopes—92.8 points against 92.7 points.

I realize that reality was not a feel-good Hollywood story. Moore Architects would not give me another six years. My sixty-three-year-old grandfather was running out of time as well.

There wasn’t going to be a next time, Ethan.

With the camera pointed at us, I took a step back and pulled the most presentable smile I could muster.

“Congratulations, you two.” I paused briefly before finishing my sentence with a clear mark of sarcasm. “Your relationship as mentor and mentee is very inspiring and touching.”

Chapter 2

Ethan appeared to be vaguely upset by my remark. There was a hint of mockery underneath his smile that did not look very pleasant.

He thought dismissively to himself that I was too young and far too impulsive. With my mismatched ambition and lack of patience, I wasn’t going to make it far in this city. I had only spent five years in the industry and was already expecting to ascend to the top! Did I think life was some sort of Hollywood movie?

To triumph, one needed to have true talent instead of relying on so-called nepotism. To name an example, sleeping with an executive to make it to the top wasn’t going to work. The business world was cutthroat; it was no Make-a-Wish Foundation. However, I should try again next time. If there was a next time, he would fairly crown me.

With that in mind, he tried to console me. “Arya, the celebration party is going to be held in the Rainbow Hall. You should come too.”

“No, thank you.” I declined politely, “I’m going home to get some rest.”

Ethan frowned. I was not the type to decline a chance at networking. It was the most important part of thriving in this industry. However, before he could spare another thought, Sophie had taken his arm.

Meanwhile, I hailed a ride. After burrowing in the backseat, I looked out the window and beheld the dazzling nightscape of Manhattan. There was something glacial about it.

Before I even got home, I could see the trending hashtags on social media, listing “Ethan Moore,” “Sophie Vanderbilt,” and “Architecture Power Couple.” Each hashtag was styled in bold red, suggesting that they were trending topics.

Ethan had an award-contending project that was three years in the making—a sustainable community development project set in a district in Brooklyn. He had very eagerly named Sophie as the lead architect of the project. If I were at the celebration party, I wager that my expression would’ve been so twisted that I would lose all social graces.

When the display on my phone darkened, I saw my reflection. I looked tired and pale. It did not seem like I was looking anywhere near pleasant as it is.

As soon as I closed the application, I received a text from Ethan.

“No need to wait for me. I’m going to be held up for a while.”

Instead of replying, I swiped the text away. A dim blue light was cast over my face while I began to reminisce about the process of how he breached into my world.

“That girl from Columbia University is a diamond in the rough. I was the one who trained her. Ignore those trending headlines. They’re artificially boosted anyway. I was only modifying her blueprint. We need to make headlines, Arya. This is business we’re talking about. When are you going to grow up?”

...

At first, it was “Who is she?”

Gradually, it became “Why her?”

Toward the end, nothing remained but silence.

When I read the long and elaborate messages about Sophie on the screen, I realized that it did not occur to him that it had been a long time since I texted him at all.

All that was left was a cruel line of text that said I was left on read.

Chapter 3

The straw that broke the camel's back was an episode from three months ago. What it came down to was a matter of priority.

On that particular day, Sophie was cut by a marble slab somewhere in the affluent district of the Hamptons. At the same time, I was conducting a site survey at an abandoned factory in the Bronx and ended up hurting myself when I fell from a stairway. The injury she sustained was only a tiny cut, no longer than a centimeter in width, while I suffered a spinal injury. Even in the same city, our fates were a sharp contrast.

The extent of Ethan’s concern for me was limited to a short sentence, asking, “Are you okay?”

Meanwhile, he made a grand and chivalrous display of taking Sophie to the best hospital in the region in his Tesla. He was so worried for her that he even sought medical advice on social media with a post that read, “Urgent! What's the solution to preventing a potential scar?”

From the pictures, I could see Sophie seated in the passenger seat of his Tesla. Despite how frail she looked, she was still mesmerizing. Meanwhile, I lay all by myself in the emergency room surrounded by the smell of disinfectant.

I watched as Ethan exchanged quips and banter with his friends in the comments section while ignoring the texts I had sent him. The indifference he directed toward me hurt more than the spine injury itself.

After spending a sleepless night, I went to see him while still strapped with a heavy brace on my back. I found him in his office staring intently at a model of a Rhino, which Sophie had designed on the screen. His brows were furrowed with focus, as if that was a thousand times more important than my condition.

“Give me a second, Arya. There's a structural problem here.”

He didn’t even bother to turn around to face me.

I stood outside the glass door and watched as he fiddled with Sophie's design. In the span of two hours, it finally occurred to me that even a measly sketch was more important to him than I was.

There was a Young Architect Award certificate issued by the Institute of Architects, which he received last year, framed on the glass door.

At one point, his secretary Emma approached to inform me in a lowered voice. “Arya, Ethan is still going over the design with Sophie, and it might take at least two more hours…”

She examined my reaction briefly before continuing, “Why don't you come back later?”

I insistently shook my head and said, “I’ll wait for him.”

Emma seemed troubled by this.

“You might distract them if you stay here.”

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through me, which made my whole body collapse under its weight. Fortunately, Emma grabbed me just in time.

The sudden commotion caught Ethan's attention from the other side of the glass wall. He glanced over in my direction and seemed not very impressed with the scene he was witnessing.

“Please escort the unauthorized personnel.”

He spoke with clear conviction as if he was doing what was right and kicking out an unwanted homeless man from a dignified venue. Then, his gaze lingered on my twisted posture for a moment. His lips seemed to tremble slightly as if he wanted to ask if everything was fine.

“Ethan, how about the light projection…”

His attention was quickly redirected back to the screen when he heard Sophie’s faint and pleasant voice. The concern he directed at me vanished like a mirage. It seemed to last all but a split second before it dissipated like dust.

The message was clear enough. He wanted me to drop the act, be professional, and get out of here before I embarrass him. Once he was done, perhaps he would be generous enough to send me a copy of the meeting minutes he jotted down with Sophie as a way to “make up” for what happened today.

The air conditioning unit droned on dully and endlessly. The only thing separating us was a wall. He was the one with the power over the temperature, while I was left to shiver from the mixture of the lingering heat of Manhattan in July and the air conditioning.

I pulled the coat tighter around myself before turning and heading out through the elevator.

Five years ago, we graduated from Columbia University together and vowed that we would take the city by storm.

However, it looked like I was going to have to accept the bitter truth that the man who once walked by my side was gone.

Chapter 4

The following day, the organizing committee of the competition put together a livestream for a podcast at a loft studio somewhere in SoHo. The so-called “roundtable discussion” was, in truth, a carefully orchestrated public stunt for crisis management.

Ethan sat in the lounge chair, still dressed in the Tom Ford suit from the night before. His tie was loose, which made him seem rather hungover, yet it also gave him an air of nonchalance. It was a good embodiment of the “effortless social elite” look that was popular amongst the masses.

When he spoke into the microphone, he assumed his usual ‘mentor’ role.

“Arya is a doer. She works incredibly hard.”

He paused briefly before continuing in an arrogant tone characteristic of a head lecturer from the Harvard School of Design.

“However, I’m sure you all have heard of the term 'less is more’ used widely in architecture. Excessive flair can sometimes lead to an overdone product.”

Then, he abruptly changed the subject and brought Sophie into the conversation.

“Sophie is something else entirely. She is a genius when it comes to creating a curated experience. Her instinct for space is… phenomenal.”

I looked at him and felt my stomach churn.

Overdone?

I spent three whole months in an abandoned factory in the Bronx to cover up countless graffiti spray-painted by gangs. I went door-to-door conducting community surveys. Was that supposed to be overdone?

Meanwhile, Sophie was lounging on a beach somewhere in the Hamptons, drawing up blueprints on her iPad. What part of that was instinctual?

While Architectural Digest and Dezeen commended my design as being refreshingly humanist, my partner was publicly humiliating me on a live stream.

I wanted to offer a retort, but a wave of memories rushed over me, gaslighting me with remarks that I shouldn’t be so sensitive or that it wasn’t that serious.

Since this was all for show, I decided to end the farce.

“Ethan.” I adjusted the microphone before crossly cutting off his sentence with a signature podcaster tone. “That was an excellent speech, but I’ll have to interrupt you for a moment. I need to go to the washroom.”

I took off my headphones before getting up to leave. A wave of silence fell over the studio.

During the intermission, Ethan confronted me in the back alley.

He lit a cigarette and frowned. “Have you lost it? I put this whole thing together to give you some exposure. You were supposed to acknowledge and discuss what you learned from your failure. While you're at it, you should applaud Sophie's talent… It'll do good things for your career.”

So that was his real goal all along.

There had been countless accusations of Sophie being a nepo baby online. That was why he needed me, a “veteran” with technical expertise to vouch for Sophie and to prove that her victory was earned. That was the only way the accusations could be stamped out.

The whole affair was laughable. I shot a look at him.

“Ethan, I’ll give it to you. It’s a pretty good PR strategy.”

I forced a sarcastic smile before continuing, “But I'm just a runner-up. I can’t possibly have the merit to critique the champion, do I?”

With that, I turned and walked away, leaving him to the onslaught of cold gusts of wind in the alley. This time. I was done with the whole song and dance.

Chapter 5

“Ethan’s new project listing is about to be closed! It’s for a prime location in the heart of Brooklyn! Aren’t you going to try to fight for it?”

Lisa grabbed my arm firmly.

I took a look at my phone and saw that there were unread messages.

“I’m not going.”

Lisa’s hand trembled with rage, causing her to spill her oat latte onto the table.

“What do you mean you’re not going? That was your design! He robbed you at the award ceremony!” She was yelling at this point. “He’s taking advantage of you!”

“What about it?” I interrupted her lethargically.

Of course, I realized he was taking advantage of me.

Four years ago, we were holed up in a shoebox apartment somewhere in Chinatown, working on a project in the Lower East District. In that place where even the vermin avoided, we spent our days drawing up blueprints.

After we became successful, he became the darling of the New York Times, while I remained unknown. When I tried to fight for at least a bit of credit for the design, he smiled briskly and practically executed me in front of all the shareholders in the conference room.

“Arya, you shouldn’t let your feelings cloud your judgment. It’s very unprofessional.”

He hardly needed to raise his voice to make me come off as the laughingstock of the entire company. I was reduced to a useless doll with a pretty face, trying to climb the corporate ladder by latching onto her boyfriend.

“There are some things he was right about.” I said while looking at Lisa with a vacant look in my eyes, “I’m not cut out for this.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I’m tired, Lisa.”

When I said that, I felt like I was cutting off the last thing that kept me going. All those dreams we had about winning the Pritzker Prize for architectural design, those vows of leaving a mark on the Manhattan skyline were gone.

The urgent wailing of an ambulance siren filtered through the windows. The sound was slowly fading off into the distance, a metaphor of my symbolic death in the final year of my contract.

Chapter 6

The process of terminating the contract was mercilessly smooth. The procedure was as cold and perfunctory as writing off a bad debt. It was apparent that, as far as Moore Architects' finance department was concerned, their return on investment had already peaked.

Mr. Morrison sat behind his enormous mahogany table while he addressed me. He adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses before announcing as if he were delivering a closing statement in a courthouse.

“Arya, you may have talent, but to make it in this industry, you need a killer instinct. You’re too soft.”

He shrugged indifferently before offering a rather insulting piece of advice.

“But you do have a very solid foundation in design theory. Maybe you could consider applying for a part-time lecturer position at Parsons or Pratt? As they say, if you can’t do, you can at least teach.”

I signed my name on a document and wrote a check for the “termination of contract fee” to reimburse the firm for the so-called training they had invested in me. With a stroke of the pen, all of my savings originally intended for a down payment on a studio apartment were all but gone.

By the time I walked out of the office building in the city center, it was dusk. The December wind in New York cut through me like a blade. The avenue was adorned with festive Christmas decorations. There was even an ongoing light show outside a large department store. The light installation projected giant snowflake patterns onto glittering chandeliers, dazzling a cohort of tourists.

Amidst the wondrous landscape, I felt empty inside. Then, my phone vibrated. It was a text from my grandfather.

“My dear granddaughter, you’ve done a wonderful job! I saw your name printed on the World News Journal again!”

I felt tears pooling in my eyes when I read the message.

Grandpa was a first-generation immigrant who spent a large part of his life doing hard labor under the California sun. He hardly knew anything about the Pritzker Architecture Prize, nor did he know what a partnership contract was.

When I was in architecture school, he would don his reading glasses and help me with memorizing a variety of architectural terminologies. He would mispronounce “Sustainability” as “Sustain-a-bubble” or “Architecture” as “Art-lecture.”

Over the years, I had to tell him countless lies, saying that I’d visit him after the project was wrapped up, that I was very valued by my boss, or that I was doing great in New York.

I chased after fame, prestige, and Ethan for six years… just to end up empty-handed. The entire time, Grandpa was watching over me in the small town of Sunnyvale in California. I was his only source of pride.

I stood bracing the cold wind on Fifth Avenue and took a large drag of the frosty air containing a faint scent of the aroma of roasted chestnuts and car exhaust. Then, I reached for my phone to buy a one-way flight ticket on the airline's application, from JFK to SFO at six o'clock tomorrow morning.

Chapter 7

Before I left, Jack invited me to a party at a private club on the east side of the city.

“It’s a networking event reserved for the elites. They’re all bigshot partners.”

The only reason I went was not for me, but for Lisa instead. Before I left for good, I had to make sure she and the team were left in good hands, preferably assigned to a respectable project.

The event was held in a century-old villa built with mahogany, where waiters carted around trolleys made with silver. When I instinctively helped the waiter hold the cumbersome oak door open, he looked at me gratefully. I thought it was the only genuine human interaction I’d had all day.

I could hear the sound of laughter and conversation spilling through the ajar door.

“I’m going to be honest, Ethan. Arya’s blueprint was as perfect as they come. I don’t know how you have the heart to rip it from her.”

Then, I heard Ethan’s voice. There was the usual mark of arrogance in his voice, the kind that was distinctive of Ivy League graduates, albeit mixed with the taste of scotch whiskey.

“I don’t know what to tell you. There were problems with the design. I can’t sacrifice my integrity as a juror just because she sleeps with me, can I? It’s business at the end of the day.”

Then, I heard someone defending me. It sounded like Michael’s voice. “Her on-site project in the Bronx is very elaborate and well done–”

“Her vision is too narrow.” Ethan dismissed his remark candidly. “We can talk about her talent when she starts doing real architecture instead of fiddling around with measly ‘kitchen renovations’ and ‘shop decoration’ projects.”

I stood outside the entire time and didn't even feel mildly affected. I had long become immune to his theatrics of belittling me in front of his peers to demonstrate how “objective” he was.

Then, I opened the door and found a seat at the end of the table. I worked like a professional saleswoman that night; all I did was endorse Lisa and her team to every architect willing to listen to me.

“Lisa has had a lot of experience working with the brownstone buildings in the Brooklyn district. She is very attentive when it comes to historical details.”

At one point, I caught the interest of a visiting MIT professor. He commended my opinion on the adaptive use of material when it came to working on heritage buildings. He was a very witty man and told a few clever jokes about Boston’s terrible traffic and their brutalist architecture, which gave me a nice chuckle.

Throughout the entire conversation, Ethan twirled his glass of Macallan 18 without taking a sip from it. He fixed a sinister look on me the entire time. When they were leaving, he suddenly yanked me out of the crowd and shoved me into his Tesla parked on the side of the road.

The moment the door shut, I found myself in a claustrophobic space filled with a suffocating smell. It was a mixture of the smell of expensive leather, cigar smoke, his Tom Ford cologne, and a hint of Chanel No. 5 that did not belong to me.

“Were you flirting with another man in front of me?” His voice came out as a deep rumble. I could see the anger in his eyes.

“It’s just networking,” I said, trying to open the door.

Suddenly, he crossed his arm over the length of my body before pinning me against the car window, trapping me in the corner of the passenger seat.

“I’m in the top rung of the architecture industry in New York. Is there anything that I cannot do for you?” he questioned.

I could smell the liquor on him when he drew closer.

“Did you have to be all over those second-rate scholars like some kind of beggar?”

I felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me when I looked at him.

He would never understand. A few years back, Lisa went out all to help me secure a junior draftsman position in a project led by him. She drank so much at a networking event that she had to be rushed to the ER.

Upon hearing about the news, his reply was a dismissive text, “Tell her to behave professionally.”

This time, I hissed at him, “I don’t want to owe you any more favors, Ethan.”

I turned away. The MIT professor I spoke to had given me several of his close contacts in the Bay Area of California, but I made sure not to tell him about it.

At this point, he loosened his Hermès tie and allowed his voice to soften. This was his usual way of earning my sympathy after abusing me.

“Listen, honey. I have a new project for commercial development. It just so happens that I need a project coordinator…”

Just then, my phone vibrated.

It was a text from Lisa that read, “The flight is confirmed. I’ll see you in San Francisco.”

With that, I curtly rejected his offer before opening the door to step outside. The gust of chilly night air blasting in my face was a welcome relief from the repulsive smell of his perfume.

“Ethan.” I stood by the roadside with my back facing the dazzling streetlights as I said, “We're going our separate ways from now on. I’m good on my own.”

Chapter 8

I spent the entire night at Starbucks chugging coffee with Lisa to the point of nearly missing my flight in the morning. I had to rush back to my rundown apartment building in Chinatown without an elevator to fetch my luggage.

Upon turning the key and throwing the door open, I saw Sophie. She stood in the center of the living room, donned in a large Ralph Lauren shirt, which I recognized as Ethan's favorite shirt. The shirt was barely long enough to cover her upper thighs, exposing her smooth and silky legs. Her blonde hair was still wet and draped over her shoulders. It was a distinctive look of someone who was just coming down from the bedroom afterglow.

When she spotted me, she cocked a haughty look that was both arrogant and fraudulently innocent. How very old money of her.

“Oh, Arya? Is that you?”

She leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed as if she owned the place.

“Sorry, I thought it was the delivery guy when I heard the door open…”

How could she mistake me, Ethan’s real girlfriend, for the delivery guy? That was microaggression at its finest.

Well, too bad for her, I was not interested in playing along with these little games of hers.

“Forget about it, Sophie.” I shot her an icy look and said, “You have no right to ask me why I’m here, at least not until you put your name under the title of the building.”

Then, I pushed against her shoulder to shove her out of my way. It was a proper, fierce shove. I had no reason to hold back. Then, I walked straight into the apartment.

After grabbing my already packed suitcase, I turned to leave. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the bedroom door left ajar. I spotted Ethan still sleeping soundly in bed. The sheet was pulled down to his waist, revealing the silhouette of his back. There were also two empty wine bottles on the bedside table. The label on the bottle read Château Margaux 2015.

My heart skipped a beat. Those bottles were worth six hundred dollars. I knew because they were the birthday gift I bought for him last year, I had to live frugally and drink instant coffee for two weeks straight to save up the money for them.

At the time, he kissed me tenderly and told me, “Honey, these are too precious to be drunk right away. I’ll save it for a special occasion.”

It seemed like taking me out of the picture and marrying the daughter of a rich family was the special occasion he had in mind. Just like that, the last vestige of my affection for him evaporated like the wine stain at the bottom of the bottle.

Ten minutes later, the taxi driver stuffed my suitcase into the trunk. While the taxi coursed down the highway, I watched as the world-famous skyline of Manhattan shrank by the second. The Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building… all those steel behemoths we used to gesture at from rooftops seemed completely indifferent.

I pulled the eyemask over my eyes to snuff out the last vestiges of light from the city. Expensive wines and empty promises were the last thing on my mind. What dominated my thoughts was the old kitchen back in Sunnyvale. I saw visions of Grandpa spending all afternoon making beef stew and chicken soup in a cast-iron pot. They were piping hot and rich with flavor; they were real, and it was the place where I belonged.