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Vivienne The car slowed to a stop outside my rented apartment. I glanced at Dominic, his perfect profile illuminated by the faint orangey glow of the streetlights. He was silent, his hand draped lazily over the steering wheel, exuding a kind of nonchalance that only added to his allure.“I think I need some time…to think.” I said finally, my voice quieter than I intended.His gaze flicked to mine, those piercing, green sexy eyes locking onto me. “Time,” he repeated, his lips curling into a slow, knowing smile. “Fair enough.”It was as though he could read my thoughts, the way his smirk seemed to say he already knew what my answer was. He leaned slightly closer, his earthy cologne—woody with a hint of something spicier—sending a shiver down my spine.“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, his tone soft but firm, like a promise.I nodded, fumbling with the door handle. My legs felt shaky as I stepped out of the car, his intense gaze following me the entire time. I hurried inside, my heart

Vivienne Dominic’s large hand wrapped tightly around mine, a reassuring weight as he guided me out of the suffocating estate. Everything felt surreal. My mind replayed the evening’s events like a broken disc track.The betrayal. The humiliation. And now…this man.I glanced at him from the corner of my eye, trying to piece him together. In the soft glow of the fairy lights, his features were almost unreal—perfectly symmetrical with a jawline sharp enough to cut glass. His hair, a rich shade of red-brown, was tousled just enough to look effortlessly stylish. His eyes were a masterpiece, deep and almost hypnotic, fringed with lashes most women would kill for. The way they glinted under the light made my breath catch.Then there was the way he carried himself. Tall, broad-shouldered, his perfectly tailored suit clinging to a build that screamed power and control. He was the kind of man you’d see on the cover of a magazine or walking down a runway.But more than his looks, it was his pre

VivienneMy dress was stunning. Soft champagne satin that draped like liquid gold against my skin. A sweetheart neckline framed my collarbone, and the gown cinched at my waist before falling to the floor. The effect was timeless, elegant, and entirely unlike how I felt inside.Still, I had to dress to kill.My hands were unsteady as I clasped the thin chain of my necklace, the final touch. I stared at myself in my new apartment mirror, trying to summon a strength I didn’t feel. Tonight wasn’t just a party; it was a battleground. And my armor was the poise I didn’t know if I could maintain.Alias and Amélie would be there. Together. No longer lurking in the shadows but openly flaunting their betrayal. My stomach churned as bile rose in my throat. Why are you even going?Alias’s grandfather’s party? Of course, I had to go. If not for the man who had always been kind to me, then for one final confrontation. One last chance to remind them—and myself—that I wasn’t weak.This wasn’t about

Vivienne The next morning I was up early, barely getting any sleep the previous night. Alias didn't come home and it was obvious what he was up to.I came to a hard conclusion; if Alias didn't have a good excuse, things would be over between us.My hands tightened around the thick duvet cover, I couldn't imagine a life without him but the evidence was real.I heard the sound of the down stair door open and I braced myself. Soon Alias strolled into the room, caring less if I existed. His tie hung loosely around his neck, his hair messy and eyes dilated. He looked like he had a really good time. He didn’t even glance my way. Not once.I inhaled deeply, fighting the urge to crumble. I was done being a foot mat.“How was the party?” I asked calmly, trying to mask my anger.“Good,” he muttered, not even looking up, his focus already on the bathroom door.I watched him as he disappeared behind it, the sound of the shower rushing filled the room. My nails dug into my palms, the pain groun

Vivienne My name is Vivienne Duval, adopted heiress to the Duval Fashion Industries and I had never felt more pathetic in my entire life than I did now.I sat restless on the hospital bed as my mind raced with thoughts, thoughts that wouldn't let me sleep at night. The faint hum of the IV drip I was hooked on to and the distant murmur of the nurses were the only things that broke the deafening silence of the private room I was in.I had ended up at the hospital because I overworked myself—again. I didn't know why I always had to prove a damn point.My body felt weak from the treatment but it was the weight of my emotional turmoil that was harder to bear.I looked around and I was alone.Like always.My mind drifted, almost as if on autopilot, to my fiancé, Alias. He was supposed to be here today like he promised but of course he wasn't! My heart throbbed, reminiscing his words.“You know, I'd be there if I could Vivi, work is relentless right now.”Whether I liked it or not I had to

LenoraI had never seen anyone look smaller than Liam did in that moment, standing on an empty runway in the desert wind, watching his own mother turn to face him like he was a problem she'd finally decided to stop postponing."Eight months," Penelope said, and her voice had lost every trace of the warm, unhurried cadence she'd used on us at the Aldridge. This was something colder, older, worn smooth by decades of disappointment she'd apparently been swallowing in silence. "That's how long you spent building that account before the accident. I know, because I found the paperwork eleven months ago, buried in a file you were careless enough to leave accessible on a server I still have access to, whether you remember that or not.""You've known for eleven months." Liam's voice cracked, disbelief and something closer to panic underneath it. "You've known this whole time and you said nothing?""I said nothing because I kept hoping you'd stop on your own. That some part of you would look at

Elias"We can beat their flight time by forty minutes if we leave now," Dominic said, already rattling off logistics before I'd finished asking the question. "Your jet's faster, and their flight plan has a scheduled refueling stop theirs doesn't need to make if the wind cooperates. It's tight. It's not impossible.""Do it.""Elias." A pause, weighted with something I couldn't quite place over the phone. "If Weston's the one waiting on the other end of this, walking in there isn't just confronting your brother anymore. You understand what you're actually flying into.""I understand exactly what I'm flying into." I looked at Lenora, already pulling on her coat, jaw set with a determination that had nothing hesitant left in it. "That's precisely why I'm not doing it alone.""I wasn't suggesting you should," Dominic said, something almost wounded in his voice, and I filed that away too, the way I filed everything now, unable to fully silence the small, cold voice in the back of my mind th

LenoraDominic sent the footage before Elias had even finished asking him to.It was grainy, timestamped, the angle awkward the way airfield security cameras always seemed to be, built for liability rather than clarity. But it didn't need to be clear. I knew her the second she stepped out of the car—the particular way she tucked her hair behind her ear, a habit I remembered now from a handful of visits so long ago I'd nearly convinced myself I'd imagined half of them.Marie.She crossed the tarmac toward Liam like they'd done this before, like the choreography of it was already familiar, and handed him something small enough to fit in one hand before he pulled her into a brief, tense embrace and they both disappeared up the stairs of a waiting jet.I watched it three times before I could make myself say anything."She called me," I said finally, voice strange and distant even to my own ears. "She called to warn me. About your mother, about the rumors, about all of it. I thought—" I st

EliasThe first page meant nothing to me. A wire transfer, a date, a routing number. It took Marcus turning to the third page and tapping it once, deliberately, before I understood what I was actually looking at."That account was opened eight months before the accident," he said quietly. "Funded in increments small enough not to raise questions at any single bank, large enough that by the time of the crash, there was more than enough sitting in it to make a very specific problem disappear.""Whose name," I said, though some cold, sinking part of me had already started arranging the shape of the answer before he gave it to me."Liam's."The room tilted slightly, or maybe that was just me."That's not possible." I heard myself say it even as every instinct I had told me it was exactly, precisely possible, that it explained things I'd spent four years refusing to look at directly. "Liam doesn't plan. He reacts. He's never had the patience to build something over eight months in his life

LenoraI hadn't thought about Marcus Hale in years, not really, not beyond the vague, unpleasant shape of him in the back of my memory—a tall, silver-haired man who always smelled faintly of cedar and spoke to my father in a low, unhurried voice that made everyone else in the room feel like they were interrupting something.But sitting there with Elias's phone still warm on the bed between us, I found the memories coming back sharper than I expected, details I hadn't realized I'd kept."He was at the house the week before I left," I said slowly. "Not for anything to do with me. Some routine visit, the kind he made a few times a year. I remember because he asked me a question that felt strange at the time, and I never thought about it again until right now.""What did he ask?""He asked if I was happy." I frowned, turning the memory over like it might reveal something new if I looked at it from a different angle. "Not in a casual way. He asked it like it actually mattered to him, which

EliasShe was still asleep when the light came up gold through the curtains, curled toward me with one hand loosely fisted in the sheet like even unconscious she hadn't quite let go of the night before.I'd spent four years training myself out of stillness. Stillness meant vulnerability, meant giving whatever was watching you a clean shot at whatever mattered most. I lay there anyway, watching her breathe, and let myself be still for the first time in longer than I could remember without once flinching at how exposed it made me feel.*This is what I almost didn't let myself have,* I thought, and the thought landed harder than I expected it to, close enough to grief that I had to look away from her for a moment to steady it.I'd built my whole adult life around the assumption that wanting something this much was how you handed someone the exact leverage they needed to destroy you. My father had taught me that without ever meaning to teach me anything. My mother had perfected the lesson