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1.
Emily dreams of the face of Sara the cocktail waitress nightly.
Post-accident, post-rehab Sara is as sober and changed as Daniel, and far from blaming the gray-suited golden boy; Emily can see Sara's still in love with him.
It's harder to sort Daniel's guilt out from what other emotions he might be feeling, frankly. But they aren't Grayson emotions. And in the end, Emily's best-laid plans fall to the sinkhole of her guilt. He was a kid when she was a kid. She doesn't need to be his wife to get close to Victoria--just as good if she's his dearest friend, the woman who graciously stood aside for his true love... And it's better for him, isn't it? If she doesn't bring him so deep into her web.
Before they get any closer, she plants reminders of Sara everywhere. A picture in a book. A well-timed "anniversary of" news article. A waft of Sara's perfume at a restaurant. Overt suggestions that they should visit Sara more often, and covertly created urgent business that tears her away from said visits.
Months later, when she stands in their wedding (which she is essentially paying for by now employing the disinherited Daniel Grayson at one of her charities), the look on Victoria's face is a small victory for Emily. Daniel might have been the weakest link, but the chain still crumbles fine without him.
"Keeping some measure of your humanity may lead to a more elegant sort of revenge in the long run," Nolan suggests while they dance.
She glances at Daniel over Nolan's shoulder, and catches his eye. Daniel's smile is crooked and he pulls his new wife closer to him. "Thank you, boss," he mouths over Sara's head.
"No one asked you, Nolan," she says, only slightly miffed by how pleased she feels at having created happiness for a Grayson.
2.
"Mom, Dad, I'm not going back to business school. I--I've been given a fellowship to study poetry in Iowa."
"Iowa?" Victoria does not look amused. Nolan and Emily watch via whale cam, Emily with a firmly contained smile, Nolan with unrepressed giggles.
"She doesn't even know how prestigious the program is," Nolan says. "They're both so confused!"
"And what does the inestimable Miss Thorne think about your 'ambitions'?" Conrad asked.
Daniel raises his chin and looks fierce. "She loves me for who I am. She says she'll wait 'til I find out who I am, what I can become."
"Oh, good lord," Conrad says, turning away.
"Who knew that being a patron of the arts would be so satisfying?" Emily says.
"Ems. I read his poetry. Art has nothing to do with it."
3.
It's a warm rainy night, a Tuesday, and the Stowaway hasn't really filled up. Disinherited Daniel Grayson is tending bar, much to Jack's chagrin and unease.
"I'm not mad at my father," Daniel says meditatively, drying a glass. "What would I even do with a hundred million dollars, anyway? Except become like them."
Jack is hard-pressed not to punch Daniel. Daniel obviously doesn't know what it is to need a hundred dollars. Or ten.
Then Emily Thorne shows up, and shit, she's still dating this Grayson loser, because she has just so much money it doesn't matter to her that he's lost a hundred mill, either. Which of course means... she must really like him. It's not about the money and the Grayson name after all.
Jack wants to stick a fork in a light socket, just to feel something else. But Emily isn't smiling and kissing Daniel. Her face is tight and worried, and Nolan is with her and they sit tensely at the bar until the last patrons go.
Daniel is too stupid to realize something is up.
But Jack waits.
In the empty bar, Nolan pulls out a laptop and a little USB device shaped like a whale, and begins to unwind a crap ton of extremely damning evidence.
"Why?" Daniel whispers. "Why are you showing me this, why are you making me see this?"
"Because you deserve better," Emily says. "Somehow, you grew up with a conscience and the ability to care about other people, Daniel, and you need to know. I'm going to tell the truth here, tonight, in this bar--because you deserve better." She's looking at Jack now. "You both deserve better."
"Why's he here?" Jack asks, jabbing a thumb at Nolan.
"Impartial third party. Witness for the prosecution. That sort of thing," Nolan says. "Possibly to hold one of you back?"
Emily gives Nolan a look that clearly said she doubts his ability to hold anyone back, but she lets it go. She turns back to Daniel and Jack, and begins: "I'm trusting you with something very big." Her eyes hold Jack's more than Daniel's, but Jack gets it, gets that somehow Daniel is still the important factor here. "My name is not Emily Thorne. I was born Amanda Clarke."
Jack understands. He grips the bar towel in his hands very tightly. He's a dope, alright. But--just a little bit--he already understands it's Daniel who is the real dope, if he thinks Amanda Clarke is here for him and not Jack.
4.
She thought briefly about spilling something on Daniel Grayson's jacket as a meet-cute, but she doesn't. Maybe the plan doesn't need a romance. Maybe there are better ways into the Grayson stronghold. Maybe Ashley is the best option after all.
The kid was innocent, compared to his parents. He might be entitled and foolish and never going to live up to his potential, but that didn't mean she was required to ruin his life.
Victoria had other weaknesses. A thousand of them.
5.
When she found out about his other dreams, about the poetry, she said, Let's leave tonight, I want to marry you, Daniel, I want to marry you now. Let's go.
And he was stupid in love with her, so he did. They drove to La Guardia and took the first plane going anywhere that Graysons never went, anywhere that would welcome their money. That meant Uganda, and on the way she emailed the right people to start their new lives. An apartment, a priest, a charity for her, and a poet's garret for Daniel.
A ceremony, a day to acclimate, and she kissed Daniel's cheek after their morning walk to the market. She left him at a plain desk under a window over-looking banana trees, and went to the orphanage that she'd found to endow.
Unsurprisingly, Nolan showed up before lunch, wearing a full-on Truman Capote linen suit. He surveyed the orphans Emily was reading to.
"I don't want to hear it," she said.
"You don't even know what I'm going to say."
"I know I failed him."
Nolan just spread his jacket out and settled down on the floor next to one of the kids, who stared at him. "This is absolutely the best revenge, Ems. Living well, served cold, whatever. Your dad just didn't have the scope of imagination to think this one up."
Her smile was a quirk. Nolan settled back to enjoy story-time.