Novels by Evve

I heard her crying through the phone. Something in me snapped.It wasn't a rational anger. It wasn't the cold, calculating fury I used in boardrooms to dismantle competitors. This was primal. It was a roar of blood in my ears that drowned out the hum of the city below my terrace."I told them," she had choked out.And then she had told me what they said. Embarrassment. Hide in Connecticut. Quit your job.Nobody made Aria cry. Not even her own family. Especially not her own family.Not on my watch.I paced the length of the penthouse living room, checking my watch every thirty seconds. She said she was ten minutes away. It had been twelve.If she didn't walk through that door in sixty seconds, I was going to get in my car, drive to the Stone estate, and burn it to the ground.The elevator chimed.I spun around. The doors slid open, and there she was.She looked shattered. Her eyes were red and swollen, her face blotchy, her shoulders slumped under the weight of a rejection I could only

My mother's summons came via text: My house. Now. We need to talk. There were no emojis. No pleasantries. Just a command from the general to her least favorite soldier. I stared at the screen, my hand resting instinctively over my stomach. I should have known Sienna couldn't keep a secret that useful. She had held onto the ultrasound photo for exactly one week—long enough to feel powerful, short enough to ensure maximum damage before the wedding. The drive to the Stone estate usually filled me with a low-level anxiety. Today, it felt like driving to my own execution. I pulled my beat-up sedan into the circular driveway, parking behind my father’s pristine Bentley. The house loomed above me—a sprawling, manicured testament to my family's obsession with appearances. It was beautiful, cold, and utterly hollow. I took a deep breath. For the baby, I told myself. You’re strong enough for this. I didn't bother knocking. I used my key, the heavy oak door swinging open to reveal the sile

Noah showed up with coffee. Decaf, two sugars, splash of oat milk. He remembered.I sat in the waiting room of Dr. Martinez’s Upper East Side clinic, my hands knotted together in my lap, watching the door like a hawk. I had arrived fifteen minutes early, driven by a nervous energy that had kept me pacing my apartment since dawn.Today was the twelve-week scan. The big one. The one where the grainy blob from four weeks ago supposedly started looking like a human being. The one where we checked for fingers, toes, and genetic anomalies.When the glass door swung open and Noah walked in, the air in the room seemed to shift. He was wearing a navy suit that fit him like armor, his tie loosened slightly as if he’d just come from a battle in the boardroom. He looked tired—there were faint shadows under his eyes—but when he saw me, his expression softened.He walked straight to me, ignoring the receptionist who perked up at the sight of him."Hi," he said, his voice low and rough."Hi," I brea

Marcus deserved better than a best man with secrets. He deserved the truth.The whiskey wasn't working. It was a twenty-five-year-old single malt, smooth as silk and burning like hellfire, but it wasn't doing the one thing I needed it to do. It wasn't drowning out the memory of Aria’s pale face when she collapsed in the boardroom yesterday.It wasn't silencing the voice in my head that screamed traitor every time Marcus smiled at me."To the groom!" James, my younger brother, shouted, raising his glass. "The man who finally convinced a Stone sister to settle down!""To Marcus!" the other groomsmen chorused.I raised my glass. My hand was steady—a lifetime of boardroom poker faces served me well—but my gut was twisting into a knot that no amount of alcohol could loosen."To Marcus," I echoed.We were in the VIP room of The Vault, one of the most exclusive clubs in Manhattan. Leather booths, low lighting, bass that vibrated in your chest, and a price tag that ensured privacy. It was exa

The trash can under my desk was getting a workout. Third time this morning.I sat up, wiping my mouth with a trembling hand, and popped a mint into my mouth. My office—a glass-walled fishbowl in the middle of the development floor—suddenly felt like a cage. The fluorescent lights hummed with a frequency that seemed to vibrate right through my skull, and the smell of someone’s microwaved popcorn from the breakroom was effectively weaponizing the air."I'd become an expert at silent nausea," I whispered to my dual monitors. "A skill nobody asked for."I checked the time. 10:15 AM.I had a presentation with the level design team in forty-five minutes. I had a deadline for the lighting shaders by 5:00 PM. And I had a baby the size of a raspberry who apparently hated the concept of productivity.My reflection in the dark screen of my monitor was frightening. My skin was the color of old parchment, and there was a sheen of sweat on my forehead that had nothing to do with the office temperat

Someone was leaking our projects. The question was who, and why now.I sat at the head of the boardroom table, the silence in the room heavy enough to crush bone. Marcus was pacing the length of the room, his usually immaculate hair looking as if he’d run his hands through it a dozen times."Three clients in two weeks, Noah," Marcus said, turning to face me. "Three major bids. We lost the Tokyo contract. We lost the Berlin expansion. And now the military simulation bid? That wasn't coincidence.""No," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "It wasn't."I stared at the tablet in front of me. The rejection emails were almost identical. ‘We have decided to go with a competitor who offered a remarkably similar proposal at a lower price point.’They weren't just undercutting us. They were mirroring us. Someone was feeding our proprietary data—our architecture, our price models, our launch timelines—to a rival firm before the ink was even dry on our proposals."I built this company from nothing

The air backstage was a toxic, electric fog. It was a potent, gagging mixture of burnt hair, atomized French hairspray, body heat, and a collective, animalistic fear that was so strong it left a metallic tang on Aurora’s tongue. This was not a debut. It was an execution. Aurora, now the ghost of "Ariane Rousseau," was hidden. She had pressed herself into the darkest, coldest corner of the narrow, white-walled corridor, a shadow among the rolling racks of her own life's work. The hôtel particulier Elias had secured was a masterpiece of crumbling, Gilded Age elegance, but backstage, it was a suffocating, clinical madhouse. Models, who looked like beautiful, angry, half-starved birds, stalked past, their faces painted in severe, architectural makeup. Dressers, all in black, sprinted, their mouths full of pins, their hands shaking. "Où est la blanche?" a voice shrieked from the chaos. Where is the white one? "Merde, she’s smoking, stop her!" "Cinq minutes!" It was the machine. It

The invitation was a declaration of war. And the atelier was her armory. The decision, once made, had been a conflagration. The ice of her fear had not melted; it had flash-frozen, becoming a new, harder, sharper substance. Ambition. The two years of hiding were over. The next three months were a blur of focused, feverish, 18-hour days. The Maison AVA, the dusty, echoing storefront, was transformed. The front windows were blacked out with heavy paper, turning the sunlit room into a secret, nocturnal cavern, lit only by the harsh, brilliant, white-blue glare of design lamps. Elias was her shield. He was the public face, the "President," a role he played with a new, invigorated theatricality. He handled the logistics of the Fédération. He booked the venue, a small, atmospheric hôtel particulier that would cost a fortune. He hired the models, the lighting, the press, all under his own legendary, resurrected name. He handled the world, so that she, the ghost, could handle the work.

The Maison AVA was no longer a secret. It was a pilgrimage. The small, dusty storefront on the quiet, stone-paved street in the Marais was now the most exclusive, impossible-to-enter atelier in Paris. Two years had passed since Aurora had signed the lease, the iron keys placed in her son's tiny, sleeping fist. Two years of relentless, agonizing, triumphant work. The "Phoenix Rising" collection had sold, piece by piece, for astronomical sums to women who, as Elias had predicted, valued secrecy and exclusivity above all. Celine D'Albret had become their high priestess, wearing AVA to every major event, refusing to name the designer, and driving the fashion elite into a frenzy. The myth of "Ariane Rousseau" was complete. She was the ghost of Paris, a designer who existed only in the flawless, architectural seams of her work. And Aurora... Aurora was a ghost in her own machine. Her life was a rhythm, a monastic, disciplined existence. Wake. Ethan. Design. Ethan. Sew. Ethan.

The Maison AVA, the one Elias had leased on the quiet, stone-paved street, was no longer an empty, echoing room of potential.It was a factory.And it was, Aurora had begun to fear, a beautiful, light-filled, thriving prison of her own making.Three months had passed since she had sold her first piece to Celine D'Albret. Three months since the "Phoenix Rising" collection had, with Elias's masterful, invisible guidance, become the quiet, explosive secret of the Paris fashion elite.The myth of "Ariane Rousseau," the mysterious, unseen protégée of the legendary Elias Ward, was a wildfire.Celine's boutique had sold out. Orders had come from Milan, then London, then New York. New York. That one had sent a jolt of pure, cold terror through her, a fear that she was building a beacon, not a fortress, and that he would see it.But Elias had handled it. "They are not buying 'Aurora Vale'," he’d assured her, his voice firm. "They are buying AVA. They are buying a ghost. You are safe."So she w

Her new life was measured in two sounds: the high, frantic whir of the Bernina sewing machine, and the soft, rhythmic breathing of her son.Nine months had passed since Elias had carried her, a broken, triumphant, terrified mother, from the hospital. Nine months since he had installed her in the new apartment in his building.The apartment was no longer a sanctuary. It was a factory.The living room, with its grand, light-filled windows, was a cocoon of creation and chaos. Bolts of wool and silk were stacked to the ceiling. A massive oak cutting table dominated the center, permanently dusted in chalk. Three dress forms, her silent, headless assistants, stood guard by the cold, marble fireplace.And in the corner, a fortress of his own, was Ethan.His world was a small, blanket-padded playpen, surrounded by a mountain of sketches, fabric swatches, and the silent, ever-present hum of his mother's work.Aurora, now "Ariane Rousseau" to the world, was a ghost in her own machine.She worke

The stack of orange and purple euro notes sat on the oak cutting table for a full twenty-four hours.It was an alien object. A contamination.Aurora, now Ariane, had stared at it, her heart a cold, tight knot. It was the first money she had earned that was not from the scalding, anonymous labor of the café. It was money earned from her mind. From her name.And that, she knew, was dangerous.The five thousand euros was a validation. It was also a beacon.Elias had been right. Celine D'Albret, the boutique owner with the sharp eyes and the sharper checkbook, returned the next day.She did not bother to ring the buzzer, she simply appeared, having bullied the concierge into letting her up. She brought with her an energy, a sharp, commercial, outside world energy that made Aurora want to crawl out of her own skin."The coat," Celine had declared, throwing a fur-trimmed cape onto the lumpy bed, her eyes already on the rack. "It sold. In three hours. A Qatari princess. She didn't even blink