Sweet Romance12 min read
I Woke Up with a Twin-Heart Pendant
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I open my eyes to a living room that smells like cake and lilies. Someone is crying into a small palm, and a boy I barely remember pushes her away with a look that does not match his age.
"Get away," he says, flat and precise. "Go."
I sit very still. My name is Linnea Davis, though everyone in that house calls me by other names. I remember another life—sharp like glass. I remember being ignored, being pushed, learning to keep my mouth shut. I remember the small pendant in my fist, a twin-heart that used to warm my palm at midnight. I remember that only one person visited me the day after I died. That person was Oliver Dodson.
"Linnea, look at her hands," a childish voice cries. "She scratched me. Her hands are red."
"Stop," Oliver says, looking at the girl who had been real life to me in the last lifetime. He sits down beside me, like he always sits where I can feel the warmth. "She didn't do that."
"Did too," Kimora Hall whispers from the side, putting on a wounded smile. "She was bad to me first. She always is."
"You're being dramatic," Oliver answers, but his eyes are on me. He won't let them ignore me today. I remember this exact moment from the dream that turned into memory: the birthday party where two people share a cake and no one sees me. I remember how I learned to be invisible.
"Oliver—" Kimora tries to flirt with the other boy in the room, but Oliver looks at her like he does at a problem you want to solve with a sharp tool. He is twenty-three and looks like he has been carved from marble. He should be indifferent. In the other life he was cruel. Now he is not.
"Stop." Oliver's voice is low. "Enough."
The room freezes. Kimora flinches. My chest is a small burn of something like relief.
"Linnea, it's not your fault," Oliver says, softer, to me. "I know."
I look at him. The old picture—my hand pressed on my pendant, the one I hid in the pocket of an old coat—presses into my palm now. This life gives me knowledge I can use. I keep my face calm. I have a second chance.
"Why are you helping her?" Kimora demands, pouting to the assembled family. "You promised to marry me."
"He promised?" Oliver laughs, cold. "I never promised to marry a liar."
"You're cruel," Kimora hisses, eyes on me with a look that has killed before.
"Not cruel," Oliver says. "Clear-sighted."
"Uncle, she's causing trouble on your birthday." Gabriel Brandt, father of the family, speaks like thunder softened with pity. "She has to behave."
"Papa," Julia Gray answers, touching my head. I call her Aunt, though she is the woman who raised me. Her hands are gentler than I expected. "It's both of their birthdays. We can—"
"Quiet," Gabriel says. He presses his lips together the way people do when they hang between memory and guilt. He thinks he paid for everything with kindness. He did not.
Kimora clutches my arm and leans close. "You, dirt—"
Oliver hums, the kind of sound that loosens a person. "Stop."
When they bring out the cake, everyone laughs at the candles, but no one claps for me. The house fills with voices like wind through dry leaves. I watch everything like a player rehearsing lines. I remind myself: this time, I will not be oppressed into silence. This time I will push back smartly, not recklessly.
We walk through days like a tightrope. Oliver is cold and kind at the right times. "Linnea, don't let them decide your story," he says once, tapping the twin-heart pendant I had given him in the old life. He had kept it then, too. I had walked away. I will not now.
"Why keep that old thing?" Kimora asks once, with that simulated sweet cruelty. "It's shabby."
"It is mine," Oliver replies. He hands it to me. His palm is warm. "And now it's yours."
Moment one: He broke his habit of not caring and smiled at me once. I felt something like sunrise behind ribs I had forgotten how to open.
I find a small apartment near the jewelry firm where the Brandt family—my family—keeps its name. I take a job at a small design studio. I walk into that world with secret tools: knowledge of trends, an edge that feels like wind under my feet. I sent resumes, hid my true last name, signed papers with a hand that finally wanted to write itself free. Still, the world is crowded. People hurt for sport.
One morning, a girl named Alexis Branch whispers to a co-worker and then points. "She thinks she can buy us with coffee," Alexis says. "Go buy it, show us you are humble."
"Please," a sharp voice calls from behind them, "go buy coffee for everyone. And hurry." Kimora drips sugar like it is free.
I am tired, but I put on a brave face. "I'll be right back," I tell them. My fingers tighten on the pendant. "I can't today."
"You can't today?" Kimora laughs, loud, flinging the insult like a net. "You can't do anything."
It would have been easy to crumble. Instead I walk out and breathe. Oliver is waiting in the courtyard like a quiet gate. Alejandro Carey, Fidel Schreiber, and Luis Cook—my three brothers by distance—stand at the doorway. They look at me carefully, like people who have discovered their mistake and are ready to fix it.
"You could let them take advantage of you," Alejandro tells me, matter-of-fact. "But you won't let them."
"We won't let anyone bully you in our company," Fidel adds.
"Get the drinks back," Luis says—less commentary, more action.
We collect the women who spread lies and confront them with proof of their petty frauds. I do not relish the act. But my life is small, and cruelty was a large part of the scenery. I am tired of big people pretending to be kind.
Moment two: Oliver surprises me by putting his jacket around my shoulders when the sun leaks icy wind through the studio door. He never used to be the kind of man to make soft moves; now he turns to cradle tiny defenses with huge hands.
The company day ripples. Rumors have teeth. But we stop rumors by holding up evidence. One junior designer, Hu Wenyun—Alexis's friend—has taken credit for another’s designs. I sit very still in the back while Alejandro calmly steps up to the conference table.
"Show us the documents," Alejandro says.
"Those sketches are mine," Hu Wenyun protests.
"Not today," Alejandro says. "We have emails. We have drafts with timestamps. The credit belongs to our assistant. You will return both the praise and the clients."
The room gathers like birds. Everyone likes a spectacle when the scales fall. The alleged thief's expression changes from arrogance to disbelief to panic.
"Please—" she begins, then crumbles. She calls a string of excuses. People whisper. I sit, my fingers in my pocket. I do not smile. I do not gloat. My chest feels like rain.
Moment three: Later, Oliver walks me through the workshop and, without a word, softens a printed file I thought the world had marked "mine." He leans down, fingers brushing mine, and says, "You belonged to no one but yourself. I know now."
In the middle of this, the family arranges a formal engagement for Kimora Hall. "You must marry Finnegan Howell," Gabriel says without consulting me. Finnegan, a pale, gentle man who has always been claimed as sick, blinks like a fawn when told what to do. He coughs, and someone calls it an infirmity to arrange pity marriages.
"You're doing this because of the old deal," Oliver snaps. "Not on my watch."
"You always complicate things," Gabriel says. "Families must preserve their brands."
"Then keep your legacy from poisoning children," Oliver replies.
I should have been just a spectator, but I move. "No," I say. "I won't be hidden to smooth money and reputations. I will build my own way."
"Quit while you can," Kimora hisses. "You are nothing."
I shake my head. "I am a designer. And I will design my life." The room watches. It is a small boldness, but a necessary one.
Weeks pass like a tide. I sketch and edit every night, while Oliver reads in the corner. He changes from a statue into a man who laughs like a bell when he is alone with me. He begins to keep small records of my wins. He starts bringing notebooks with my ideas to meetings and saying, "This is Linnea's concept." He deflects credit in a way that makes people look and think. That is bravery in the language of our world.
But a storm is coming. Kimora is a storm that can be forecast by small misdeeds. She spreads the worst rumor yet: that I slept with Oliver to get ahead. The rumor is designed to humiliate. It poisons the corridor like smoke.
One evening, the company holds a clients’ gala. The boardroom gleams. Chandeliers like small moons throw down light. Guests sip champagne and pretend good taste. Gabriel and Kimora sit near the front, radiant in the kind of wealth that makes people hush their conscience.
Then Alejandro pulls a remote and the lights dim. No one expected what came next.
"Tonight," Alejandro says, voice smooth, "we honor transparency."
He clicks the remote. A muted video appears on the large screen: dozens of messages, timestamps, bank transfers, drafts of contracts, and a thread of recorded admissions from those who conspired with Kimora. The room quiets like the sea holding its breath.
"Kimora," Alejandro says, and his gaze crosses the room to her throne seat. "Stand up."
Kimora's expression hardens. "What is this?"
"This is the truth," Alejandro says. "You and two staff members conspired to humiliate and damage a junior designer and then cover up your crimes with lies to my father's partners. You sold access, took credit, and swore falsely. All of you stood against someone who had no protection. Tonight we show what that cost you."
Kimora laughs at first. "You have no evidence—"
"No?" Alejandro's voice is calm, but it boxes the air. The screen flickers. A voice recording starts. It is Kimora's own conversation with Alexis and Hu Wenyun, planning which lies to spin.
"No," Kimora whispers. Her face drains. The smile thins into panic. "How did you—who—"
"Who I am doesn't matter," Oliver steps forward quietly. "What matters is what you did."
"You're—you're blackmailing me!" Kimora shouts.
"Confessing looks better," Alejandro says. "Or you can listen to the room."
Guest faces are open books: luxury clients, industry editors, families, neighbors. They lean forward. Someone behind whispers, "Is this for real?" Someone else lifts their phone and phones a friend already. The rumor has exploded into a live performance of truth.
Kimora's color leaves her face. She stammers, then screams, "You can't! You can't do this! I don't—"
"Everyone who participated will lose their job tonight," Alejandro continues. "We will issue a public statement. We will remove all credit that was stolen. You will return the funds you took. Every recorded lie will be given to the board. You will apologize openly to the person you damaged and to everyone present. And because you forced your way into our company's private clients, we will also inform them that their contracts were negotiated with fraud."
Kimora's mouth opens, then a string of denials. She tries to call her father, then Gabriel, but the phones are not a cure. He looks around like a drowning man and flinches.
"This is outrageous," she cries. "I didn't—"
"You did," Alejandro says. "The proof is here. Admit it."
Kimora's smile is gone. She tries a plea: "Please, I'm sorry, it was a joke—"
"No." Gabriel stands, and the room holds its breath. The sound of his shoes on the floor is the sound of a man choosing something heavier than denial.
"Not a joke," Gabriel says. "Do you know what you did? You made our home a theater of cruelty. You stood over a child like a judge and sentenced her to a life of pain. And for what? For power? For status? For the show of being admired? You used the company—the family."
Kimora recoils. All that rehearsed arrogance unravels. The expression goes from arrogance to startling disbelief to malignant denial and finally collapse.
"Please," she begs, her voice small. "Forgive me. I didn't mean—"
The room reacts. Some guests murmur "shame," some make polite noises. A woman at the edge of the table opens her hands like she wants to push Kimora away. Someone pulls out a camera. Phones record as the scene unfolds. The murmurs become louder, then raw.
Oliver steps down from the spotlight. He stands right in front of Kimora's face, so close I can count her breath. "You harmed someone you were meant to protect," he tells her quietly. "You turned cruelty into entertainment. You made others think it was okay."
Kimora's face crumples. Her voice rises and breaks. "I—I didn't know. I'm sorry."
"Sorry isn't enough," says Alejandro. "Not this time."
Kimora's reaction follows the arc we all expected: smugness, then shock, then denial, then a small, frantic grasping for pity. The room watches, some with an ugly hunger, some with stunned pity. A few people even clap—sharp, like knives—which makes my skin crawl. But many more stand silent, and the silence hits harder than any applause.
The clients withdraw support. An editor stands and says curtly, "We will cancel our feature." A young intern from another firm steps into the aisle and says to me, barely audible, "We saw you. You were brave." I stare at him. I did not feel brave then. I feel braced.
When Kimora begs, a woman I do not know throws a glass of water on the floor by her feet, not at her. It's not violent, just a clear "no." Someone else takes the stage and reads the board's statement: immediate suspension pending investigation, return of stolen funds, restitution to the injured designer, termination for the staff who colluded.
Kimora collapses into a chair. She begins to cry real tears now, not the weaponized tears she had used before. Her voice turns into breathy pleas: "Please, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—please—"
People record her. People whisper. I look away. I do not want to enjoy it.
But the punishment does not stop at humiliation. The company board insists on restitution. Kimora is publicly removed from every position of power. Her name disappears from social pages. Invitations vanish like windows when you shut them. Her father, Gabriel, will retire to his study and try to understand how his sweetheart also harmed someone he loves. The people who once smiled at her lose interest.
When the worst of it happens, Kimora tries to crawl back to me and Oliver. "Please—please—" she begs.
Oliver looks at her with a sorrow as sharp as a blade. "This isn't for revenge," he says. "This is for right."
Kimora drops to her knees. I can see the rawness in her face—loss, the panic of someone stripped of their stage. The room hums.
Spectators take pictures. A few clap. A man at the edge of the room shakes his head and mutters, "She should have been taught better." Some leave. A few remain, wanting to see the end.
Kimora begs and begs. She calls names, tries to drag her father into it. The board will not let emotion blur the facts.
"Enough," Gabriel says, voice small but fatal. "You will write a formal apology and aid in restorative action. You will publicly work with the designer you hurt to correct the wrongs. You will not be allowed near our clients. You will lose privileges. The law will decide if necessary."
She pleads. The public punishment continues: her face, once a passport, becomes a liability. It is the most honest punishment I can imagine—a strip away of the illusion of rank and untouchability, and the pain of watching everything you took as a right evaporate.
When the night ends, Kimora sits at the edge of the stage, hollow. Spectators are split into those who condemned her and those who pity her. She is alone. She has no bridge between the life she built and the life she could build now. She looks at me, then at Oliver, and for the first time she looks small.
This is not a spectacle of joy. It is a reckoning. Kimora's reaction moves: at first arrogant, then flabbergasted, then pleading, then a kind of brokenness. Those who watched shift from curiosity to anger to something like shame.
After the meeting, I sit in a small back room with Alejandro and Oliver. "You didn't have to do that," I whisper.
"We did," Oliver says. "You deserve a space to breathe. The world should not let cruelty be comfortable."
I press the twin-heart pendant between my fingers. It is cold and warm at once. The room is quiet; Oliver's hand covers mine.
"I will not forget," I say. "But I will not let hate make me cruel."
He smiles at me—real, slow—and that smile is like a promise. "I would rather spend my life with someone who loves truth."
In the days that follow, Kimora's allies scatter. Some apologizers are insincere and are seen through immediately. Others are genuine and are forgiven after real work. The board pays the costs of righting the wrong. The design department gets quieter and truer. I sleep with the pendant next to my heart, the iron taste of fear replaced with determination.
Weeks later, Oliver stands in the sunlight outside my apartment and gives me a small, plain ring on a leather cord. "I know you fear promises," he says. "Call me what you wish. Call me Oliver. Call me what you called me when you were a child."
"Oliver," I try. It is not a vow. It is a step.
He cups my face and kisses my forehead. "I will keep you safe," he says. "I will try to make you laugh."
I cannot be certain of forever. But I can be certain of now, of two hearts that learned what it costs to keep another safe. I slide his ring on my finger and keep the twin-heart pendant close. The pendant hums like a small compass: not pointing to danger, but to the person who stayed.
We build a life that is quiet in public and loud in private. We fight with papers and late-night designs and small jealousies. He makes me tea. I show him late-night sketches. He covers me when I sleep. He calls me "Linnea" in moments that are private and "my designer" in moments he is proud. The years are small bolts of light.
One night, almost exactly a year after the party, I find the pendant on a thin silver chain. "I fixed it," he says. He had spent weeks searching for a jeweler to rejoin the two halves, and then worn it at a public dinner when no one knew. He always finds ways back to the little things.
I hold the twin-heart between my thumb and forefinger. "You kept it," I say.
He rests his chin on my shoulder. "You gave it to me once. I returned it. But I'm glad it's back home where it belongs."
We laugh like two children at dinner. Somewhere in the city a clock clicks, mundane and true. I let that sound anchor me.
When I think about punishment, about justice, I do not feel triumph. I feel the clean ache of a wrong made right. I feel Oliver's hand in mine and the knowledge that I will not cower again. The twin-heart pendant swings against my chest. I close my eyes and breathe.
The End
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