The Name I Hate
Nora
At nine fourteen on Monday morning, I was standing outside the offices of Ashdown Capital trying not to think about how much I wanted this job.
Wanting something too much had always made me suspicious.
It gave things power.
Still, there was no point lying to myself.
I wanted the Halston.
Badly.
I looked up at the glass tower in front of me, then down at the plan tube in my hand.
Three months of work were inside it.
Surveys. Drawings. Cost studies. Material research. Restoration plans I’d gone over so many times I could see them when I closed my eyes.
I knew the building.
That part didn’t worry me.
The people thirty-two floors above me did, slightly.
Not enough to panic.
Enough that I had woken up twenty minutes before my alarm and spent most of breakfast mentally answering questions nobody had asked yet.
My phone buzzed.
Maya — my sister:You there?
I smiled.
Me: Outside.
Her reply came immediately.
Maya:Do rich investors smell fear?
Me: Probably.
Maya:Perfect. Go in there and terrify them first.
I laughed under my breath.
Me: Excellent business strategy.
Maya:It’s why you keep me around.
That wasn’t why I kept her around.
Mostly.
Maya had been making me laugh at inappropriate times since she was old enough to talk. At fifteen, she’d somehow managed it while our mother worked whatever shifts she could find and our house slowly filled with bills nobody wanted to open.
Ten years later, she was still very good at it.
I put my phone away.
Nine fifteen.
Early.
Good.
I walked inside.
The thirty-second floor was quiet enough to make me conscious of my shoes.
A receptionist looked up as I approached.
“Ms. Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“They’re ready for you.”
Of course they were.
She led me down a corridor toward the conference room.
My nerves sat somewhere beneath my ribs.
Manageable.
I’d learned years ago that anticipation was usually worse than the actual thing.
Once someone asked me about load distribution or restoration costs, I’d be fine.
Facts were easy.
People were unpredictable.
The conference room had floor-to-ceiling windows and a table large enough to seat twenty.
Six people waited around it.
Catherine Vale, Ashdown’s development director, stood when I entered.
“Nora.”
“Morning.”
I’d worked with her enough during the preliminary stages to know that Catherine rarely wasted words.
I liked that about her.
She gestured toward the screen.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
I set down my laptop and materials.
Everything was there.
Presentation.
Printed proposal.
Cost breakdown.
Survey data.
Backup copies.
I’d checked twice before leaving.
Then once again downstairs.
Not because I expected anything to disappear.
Just because today mattered.
Catherine sat.
“You have forty-five minutes.”
“I’ll try to give you five back.”
The man from finance glanced up.
Good.
I connected the laptop.
The first image appeared.
The Halston.
Five floors of pale stone above a dark coastline.
Boarded windows.
Weathered terraces.
A section of roof that had been under temporary protection for so long the word “temporary” was doing generous work.
Still beautiful.
That was the thing about it.
Neglect hadn’t managed to make it ordinary.
“The easiest thing we could do with the Halston,” I said, “is make it look new.”
The room quieted.
“The worst thing we could do with the Halston is make it look new.”
The preservation consultant looked up from my proposal.
Good.
I clicked on the original photographs.
The central hall before the neglect.
Dark timber.
Patterned stone.
Brass lift doors.
A glass ceiling throwing daylight across the floor.
“The building already knows what it is. We don’t need to give it a new identity. We need to stop people from stripping out the old one.”
Next slide.
Current condition.
Then my proposal.
“The flooring is recoverable. Most of the timber paneling can be restored. The brass doors stay. And the ballroom ceiling does not need full replacement.”
The preservation consultant frowned slightly.
“The previous report says otherwise.”
“I know.”
“And you disagree?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Better.
My shoulders loosened.
I brought up the structural scans.
“The visible damage is mostly plaster failure from water ingress. The underlying framework is in considerably better condition than the report suggests.”
He studied the screen.
“You’ve inspected it personally?”
“Twice.”
“And you’re confident?”
“Yes.”
The finance representative turned a page.
“Your proposal is also significantly cheaper than the competing bid.”
“Because they want to replace materials that don’t need replacing.”
“They obviously don’t agree.”
“They don’t have to.”
That earned the smallest movement from Catherine’s mouth.
Not quite a smile.
Finance continued.
“And if you’re wrong?”
“Then the contingency covers what we discover during demolition.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I paused.
Fair.
“I don’t think I’m wrong.”
“You don’t think?”
I resisted the urge to sigh.
“I’m as certain as anyone can be before opening walls in a building that’s almost a century old. Anyone promising you complete certainty is either lying or hasn’t restored enough old buildings.”
The council representative smiled.
The finance man did not.
That was fine.
I wasn’t there to entertain him.
I moved on.
Guest rooms.
Accessibility.
Mechanical systems.
Construction phases.
Supply delays.
Fire regulations.
Staffing.
By the halfway point, the nervousness had disappeared entirely.
This was the part I liked.
Not selling myself.
Solving the building.
One of the investors stopped me on the east wing.
“You’re retaining the original corridor proportions?”
“Mostly.”
“That costs us six rooms.”
“Yes.”
“And potential revenue.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
Because cutting it up would ruin one of the best parts of the building.
I chose the version that sounded less emotional.
“The Halston will never win by having the highest room count. There will always be a newer hotel with more rooms, bigger bathrooms, better technology.”
I changed slides.
A rendering appeared.
Long windows.
Restored paneling.
The original proportions left intact.
“What it can offer is something those hotels can’t reproduce.”
The investor studied it.
“The building itself.”
“Exactly.”
He looked down at my figures again.
That was a good sign.
Forty minutes later, I closed the presentation.
Catherine looked around the table.
“Anything else?”
Two final questions.
Both straightforward.
Then notebooks closed.
Chairs shifted.
Months of work reduced to less than an hour.
I packed my things, trying not to analyze every expression in the room.
I’d done well.
I knew I’d done well.
There were two answers I’d probably rewrite in my head later while showering, because apparently self-torture was free.
But overall?
Good.
Catherine walked me toward the lifts.
“You did well.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
I glanced at her.
“You’re being suspiciously nice.”
“Don’t make me regret it.”
The lift doors opened.
“When will you decide?”
“Today.”
“Actual today?”
“Yes, Nora. The twenty-four-hour version.”
“Just checking.”
She shook her head.
“We’ll call.”
The doors closed.
Only when I was alone did I exhale properly.
It had gone well.
Now there was nothing left to do.
Which was unfortunate.
I hated the part where there was nothing left to do.
At four forty-seven, I had read the same paragraph of an email three times.
None of it had stayed in my head.
I closed it.
The studio was quiet.
I’d sent everyone home early after realizing the four of them were pretending not to watch me pretend not to watch my phone.
The Halston drawings covered most of the wall opposite my desk.
I knew I shouldn’t stare at them.
The project wasn’t mine.
Not yet.
My phone buzzed.
Maya — my sister:anything?
Me: Nothing.
Maya:Do you want me to call them and pretend to be your manager
Me: I am my manager.
Maya:Clearly that’s the problem.
I smiled.
For a second, I considered calling Mom.
Then didn’t.
She knew the presentation was today.
That was enough.
Mom had never been the kind of parent who called every twenty minutes asking for updates.
Especially after Dad died.
Life had been too busy for that.
I was seventeen when Bennett & Associates began collapsing.
Maya was fifteen.
Back then I understood almost none of the actual business mechanics.
I knew only the pieces that filtered into the house.
A major contract had been lost.
The Mercer project.
After that, there were whispers about Dad’s company.
Questions about finances.
Clients who suddenly wanted to reconsider.
Phone calls Dad took behind closed doors.
Mom asking him how bad it really was.
Dad insisting it was temporary.
Then the office got smaller.
Then it closed.
For a long time, Mercer was simply the name that seemed to sit at the beginning of every bad thing that followed.
I didn’t know which Mercer.
I didn’t know who had made the decisions.
At seventeen, nobody invited me into boardrooms and explained corporate politics.
I knew the name because Dad knew the name.
Because I’d heard it in arguments.
Because I had once walked into the kitchen and heard my father say, After what Mercer did, nobody will touch us.
That sentence had stayed.
The details hadn’t.
Dad died the following year.
His health had never been perfect, and the final year certainly hadn’t helped.
Afterward, Mom did what Mom always did.
What needed doing.
She worked.
Then worked more.
Office shifts. Reception work. Cleaning jobs in the evening for a while. Whatever paid consistently.
She never sat us down and told us how strong she was.
She would’ve rolled her eyes at the suggestion.
She simply kept the lights on.
I went to university.
And worked.
Café shifts at first.
Tutoring.
Basic drafting whenever somebody trusted a first-year student enough to pay her.
Maya was still in school.
Mom never asked me to help with money.
Which was exactly why I did.
Groceries appeared.
A school expense got paid.
Sometimes I transferred money to Maya and told her not to tell Mom.
Sometimes Mom clearly knew and pretended she didn’t.
We had been very good at protecting one another by lying badly.
Ten years later, things were different.
Mom had her own life.
Maya had hers.
And I had Bennett Studio.
That mattered more than I usually admitted.
Bennett had once been a name attached to a failed company.
I’d spent years turning it into mine.
My phone rang.
Catherine.
I stared at it for half a second.
Then answered.
“Hi.”
“Nora.”
Her voice gave absolutely nothing away.
“We’ve finished reviewing the proposals.”
I stood.
Apparently my body had decided this news couldn’t be received sitting down.
“And?”
A pause.
Then—
“We’d like Bennett Studio to lead the architectural restoration and interior redevelopment of the Halston.”
Nothing happened for a second.
My brain simply stopped.
I looked at the drawings across the wall.
“Really?”
Catherine laughed.
“Yes, really.”
I closed my eyes.
“Sorry.”
“You’re allowed to sound surprised.”
“I wasn’t surprised.”
“You just said really.”
“I was confirming.”
“Of course.”
The excitement arrived slowly.
Warm and strange and almost too large for the room.
The biggest project I’d ever bid for.
Mine.
“Thank you.”
“You earned it.”
That landed harder than I expected.
I sat on the edge of my desk.
“When do we start?”
“Wednesday.”
I blinked.
“This Wednesday?”
“Yes.”
“Right.”
“The schedule has changed as well.”
Naturally.
“How badly?”
“Twelve weeks to soft launch.”
I turned toward the plans again.
“Twelve?”
“Yes.”
“That is extremely optimistic.”
“I’ve been using the word aggressive.”
“I was trying to be polite.”
My brain was already rearranging the schedule.
Procurement immediately.
More site supervision.
Some phases would need to overlap.
The east wing—
“You’ll need to stay close to the property for most of the project,” Catherine said.
“Fine.”
“Accommodation is arranged.”
“Also fine.”
There was a pause.
Small.
But there.
I frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was a pause.”
“People pause when they speak.”
“Not you.”
She sighed.
“The estate has one residential property suitable for the two project leads.”
Two.
I stopped thinking about procurement.
“Two project leads.”
“Yes.”
“And who exactly is the other one?”
“You’ll get the full mobilization packet tonight.”
“Catherine.”
“Nora.”
“Why won’t you answer?”
“Because I have another call.”
Suspicious.
“Is there anything I should know before I open this packet?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
I waited.
“Congratulations.”
Then she hung up.
I stared at the phone.
“That wasn’t reassuring.”
I called Maya first.
She answered on the second ring.
“Well?”
“I got it.”
There was half a second of silence.
Then screaming.
Actual screaming.
I pulled the phone away from my ear.
“Oh my God. Nora!”
“I know.”
“The Halston?”
“The Halston.”
“I told you.”
“You did absolutely nothing.”
“I emotionally supported you.”
“You threatened cybercrime.”
“Support comes in different forms.”
I laughed.
“Have you told Mom?”
“Calling her next.”
“Call me later.”
“I will.”
“And celebrate.”
“I will.”
“You say that now, but I know you’re about to open the schedule.”
She knew me too well.
“I hate you.”
“Love you too.”
Mom answered a few minutes later.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“I got it.”
A beat.
“The hotel?”
“The hotel.”
“Oh.”
Her voice changed immediately.
Softer.
Proud.
“Oh, Nora. That’s wonderful.”
I smiled.
“Yeah.”
“You’ve worked hard for that.”
“I have.”
“Then enjoy it for five minutes before you start worrying about it.”
I laughed.
“Was that Maya?”
“No. I have met you before.”
Fair.
Then, quieter:
“Your dad would’ve been proud.”
My smile faded slightly.
Not painfully.
Just enough.
“I think so too.”
“I know so.”
That was all.
She didn’t turn it into a conversation about the past.
Didn’t ask about contracts or schedules or things she didn’t care about.
She told me we’d celebrate when I was free.
I promised we would.
At seven sixteen, the email arrived.
HALSTON REDEVELOPMENT — PROJECT MOBILIZATION PACK
I opened it immediately.
Timeline.
Access information.
Contractors.
Consultants.
Team structure.
My eyes moved quickly.
Lead Architect: Nora Bennett — Bennett Studio
I stopped.
Just for a few seconds.
Seeing it there felt good.
Really good.
Then I kept scrolling.
Structural Engineering: Daniel Cho
Development Director: Catherine Vale
Hospitality & Operations Partner: Mercer House Group
My hand stopped on the trackpad.
Mercer.
The word sat there innocently.
Black letters on white.
My stomach tightened anyway.
I stared at it longer than necessary.
Mercer House Group.
It could have been coincidence in another life.
Not this one.
I scrolled.
Project Lead: Lukas Mercer — Managing Director
Lukas.
I’d never heard the first name before.
I looked at the photograph beside it.
Dark hair.
Serious face.
Early thirties, maybe.
There was nothing familiar about him.
Why would there be?
I’d never met him.
I had no idea if he’d even been involved with the company ten years ago.
Probably not in any meaningful way.
I was seventeen then.
He couldn’t have been much older.
Reason told me that.
My reaction didn’t care.
Mercer.
That was enough.
I clicked on his short biography.
Managing Director.
Hospitality development.
Operations.
International projects.
Nothing useful.
Nothing that told me what connection, if any, he had to what happened to Dad.
Maybe none.
I closed the biography.
This was ridiculous.
I wasn’t seventeen anymore.
A surname wasn’t evidence.
I kept scrolling.
Then stopped again.
Accommodation
Gate House — Halston Estate
Resident one:
Nora Bennett
Resident two:
Lukas Mercer
I stared.
Scrolled down.
Two bedrooms.
Shared kitchen.
Shared living spaces.
Twelve-week project allocation.
I went back up.
Read it again.
Still there.
I called Catherine.
Declined.
A message arrived ten seconds later.
Catherine: I’m guessing you found it.
Me: Mercer?
Catherine: Yes.
Me: As in MERCER Mercer?
Catherine: There is generally only one Mercer House Group.
Me: Very funny.
Three dots.
Catherine: He is good at his job, Nora.
I looked back at his photograph.
Me: That wasn’t my concern.
Her answer took longer.
Catherine: I know.
I didn’t like that she knew.
I didn’t particularly like that I knew what my concern was.
Because the truth was, I had no idea what Lukas Mercer had done.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe he’d been twenty-one and living on another continent when my father’s company collapsed.
Maybe I was looking at a man whose only crime was having a surname I’d spent ten years hating.
That should have made me feel better.
It didn’t.
Another message arrived.
Catherine: Wednesday. 8:30.
I looked at the screen again.
At Lukas Mercer.
At the shared address beneath his name.
Twelve weeks.
I’d wanted the Halston badly enough to promise myself I could handle anything that came with it.
Apparently someone had decided to test that immediately.
