My brother put me at the children’s table during his wedding and murmured, “Don’t ruin the image.” Then everything changed when the billionaire executive he was desperate to impress took the seat beside me and destroyed the humiliation he had arranged.

Two weeks later.

My transition into Stewart Global Dynamics was explosive.

As Senior VP of Global Strategy, I took control of the company’s rebranding effort ahead of a massive European expansion. My name, once hidden behind non-disclosure agreements, was suddenly appearing in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Bloomberg.

The girl from the children’s table was now leading press conferences in New York and London.

But my brother wasn't done drowning. Desperate, bitter, and facing total financial ruin, Nicholas decided that if he couldn't have a career, he would destroy mine.

It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon when my assistant, Sarah, walked into my glass-walled executive office on the 40th floor of the Stewart Global tower in Boston.

“Jenna,” Sarah said, her voice tight with concern. “We have a problem. A tech tabloid just published an anonymous leak claiming that your summit speech for Emmett last month was plagiarized from a obscure academic paper.”

I set my pen down. “Plagiarized?”

“The article includes screenshots of early drafts,” Sarah explained, handing me a tablet. “It claims you stole the core economic framework from a professor at Columbia University.”

I looked at the article. The screenshots were real—they were early rough notes from my personal cloud drive.

A drive that my family had access to years ago when I used to share a joint backup account with Nicholas.

My eyes narrowed into steel. Nicholas had gone into our old shared drive, stolen my rough brainstorming notes, fabricated a fake comparison with an academic paper, and sold it to a sleazy tabloid to ruin my credibility ahead of the European expansion.

Within ten minutes, Emmett walked into my office, his face dark with fury.

“I just saw the tabloid piece,” Emmett growled, slamming the door shut. “It’s your brother, isn't it?”

“It’s his IP address,” I said calmly, looking at the network log my IT team had already pulled up. “He used an old shared folder from five years ago to steal my rough drafts.”

“I’ll have our legal team destroy him,” Emmett said, stepping up to my desk, his fists clenched. “I’ll file a federal lawsuit for corporate espionage and defamation that will leave him in prison for a decade!”

I looked up at Emmett. The sheer protectiveness in his eyes—the raw, fierce rage he felt on my behalf—sent a wave of deep warmth through my heart.

“No, Emmett,” I said gently, standing up and placing my hand over his tense forearm. “A lawsuit gives him attention. He wants a messy media fight. He wants people to think I’m fraudulent.”

Emmett looked down at my hand on his arm, his tension visibly melting away under my touch. “Then how do we handle it?”