C4

“Move your suitcase out of the doorway.”

Sylvester’s voice hits me the second Lily steps back and lets the heavy double doors of the glass-and-steel penthouse click shut. I stand in the center of the massive, vaulted living room, my knuckles white on the handle of my single thrift-store suitcase.

I don't move an inch. I turn around slowly and glare at him. "I just got here, Mr. Arlington. You can give your orders to someone who actually gets paid to listen to your voice."

"You get paid five million dollars, Mrs. Arlington," Sylvester growls, shedding his black suit jacket and tossing it onto the arm of a velvet couch. His white shirt is crisp, the top button open, exposing the thick, bronze plane of his collarbone. "And in this penthouse, my rules are law. You sleep in the primary bedroom. You keep your personal items out of the common areas. And you don't touch the thermostat."

"I'll set the thermostat to whatever temperature keeps me from freezing to death in your ice palace," I snap back, taking a deliberate step toward the hallway. "And as for the primary bedroom—there is only one bed."

"Then I suggest you get used to sleeping on your side of it," Sylvester says, his voice flat, emotionless, and colder than the glass windows behind him.

"I signed a clause that says you don't touch me," I remind him, my heart pounding a fast, heavy rhythm against my ribs. "I'm taking the window seat. I'd rather sleep on hard oak than anywhere near you."

Lily, his private secretary, stands near the kitchen counter, hiding a faint smile behind her tablet before clearing her throat loudly. "The board requires the first public proof within three hours, Mr. Arlington. Victor Hale is already spreading rumors that the emergency marriage registration is a fraudulent placeholder."

"Send the terrace photographers up," Sylvester orders, not taking his dark eyes off me. "We give them one photo. That shuts Hale's mouth until the Monday morning vote."

Two hours later, I am forced to stand on the private lower terrace of Arlington Tower, the freezing Manhattan wind tearing through the thin silk of a emerald-green dress Lily provided. Below us, telephoto camera lenses glint like tiny silver eyes from the tops of nearby buildings.

Sylvester stands beside me, his large, hot hand resting on the small of my back. He doesn't press hard, but the physical proximity makes my skin prickle with intense, unwanted heat. Every nerve in my body screams at his closeness.

"Smile, Alice," Sylvester whispers through clenched teeth, his breath hot against the shell of my ear. "You look like you're waiting for a firing squad."

"I am standing next to one," I murmur back, keeping my face turned toward the skyline.

Suddenly, a loud shout echoes from the lower plaza where a crowd of reporters has gathered beyond the security gates. "Mr. Arlington! Is it true she's an unknown curator? Did you marry a gold-digger to save your voting shares?"

I feel Sylvester's frame go instantly rigid against me. A dangerous, violent tension ripples through his broad shoulders.

Before he can speak, I turn my body fully toward him. I reach up with both hands, slowly, deliberately smoothing down the lapels of his suit jacket, then sliding my fingers up to adjust his silk tie with a soft, practiced familiarity. I lean in close, my chest lightly brushing his, and look up into his dark, startled eyes with a bright, fake smile.

"Ignore them, darling," I say loudly enough for the directional microphones below to catch every word. "They hate that you chose love over their corporate games."

Sylvester's breath hitches sharply. His dark pupils dilate, swallowing the irises whole as his hand on my back tightens, pulling me a fraction of an inch closer. For two seconds, the icy CEO vanishes, replaced by a man looking down at me with pure, unadulterated shock.

The shutter clicks explode from below like rapid gunfire.

"That was a mistake," Sylvester rasps, his voice dropping into a dangerous, dark register as I step backward out of his grip.

"It was effective," I reply, my pulse roaring in my ears as we walk back inside the penthouse glass doors. "A terrified wife looks fake. An adoring wife makes you look human. You should thank me."

"I don't thank weapons for firing where I point them," he growls, slamming the terrace door shut behind us.

By nine o'clock that evening, the penthouse descends into a heavy, suffocating silence. Sylvester sits at the long mahogany dining table with three laptops open, his dark hair messy where he's run his fingers through it in frustration.

I sit across the room in the window nook, my mother's journal resting open on my lap. I run my fingers over her faded, frantic handwriting, reading the encrypted numbers and dates over and over until my eyes burn.

1995 — Eleanor's trust altered by J. Arlington.

1998 — The original land title moved to private archive.

If they find the original will, everything goes to Alice.

My hand trembles against the paper. Eleanor Arlington. Sylvester's mother. The woman whose portrait hangs in the locked gallery down the hall—a portrait I snuck a glance at while Sylvester was on a conference call earlier tonight. A beautiful, tragic woman with dark eyes who looked so much like the sketch in my mother's diary.

Sylvester suddenly slams his laptop shut, the loud sound making me jump in my seat. He stands up, his dark eyes locking onto me.

"Stop looking at me like that," he growls.

"Like what?" I ask, closing the journal fast and shoving it behind a couch cushion.

"Like you're trying to figure out how to disassemble me," he says, taking three long strides across the room toward my nook. He stops right in front of me, his shadow completely blotting out the room's soft warm lights. "You read people too fast, Alice. It's a bad habit for someone in a temporary position."

"Maybe you're just too easy to read," I counter, tilting my chin up to meet his glare. "You're terrified."

Sylvester laughs, a dark, humorless sound. "Terrified of what? A broke curator?"

"Terrified of losing control," I say softly, watching the slight tick in his jawbone. "You hate that you need me. You hate that my signature saved your company tonight, and you hate that every time you look at me, you think about your mother."

Sylvester's face turns entirely to stone. His dark eyes flash with a sudden, lethal rage that makes the hair on my arms stand straight up. He leans down, resting both hands on the wooden frame on either side of my head, trapping me completely in his space.

The heat radiating off his body is overwhelming. My breath catches in my throat, my breasts rising and falling fast against the tight fabric of my dress.

"Do not speak her name," Sylvester whispers, his voice dropping into a rasping threat that vibrates against my lips. "You know nothing about my mother, and you know nothing about me."

"I know she wore that robe," I whisper back, my skin flushing with a sudden, intense physical awareness that makes my lower abdomen ache with a strange, thrumming heat. "And I know you haven't slept in three days."

Sylvester's gaze drops to my lips. For a long, terrifying second, the rage in his eyes shifts into something raw, dark, and possessive—a sudden, heavy hunger that makes my breath hitch and my thighs press together beneath my skirt. He stares at my mouth like he wants to destroy me, like he wants to bite down and taste the defiance bleeding out of me.

He fights it with visible effort. His knuckles turn white against the wood as he pulls himself back, tearing his body away from mine as if my very skin were poison.

"Stay in this room," he commands sharply, his voice ragged as he turns his back on me. "Jefferson called. The photo from the terrace is live on every news network in the country."

He walks out of the living room, his heavy footsteps retreating into the secondary wing, slamming his office door so hard the glass walls vibrate.

I sink back against the window cushions, my chest heaving, my heart hammering like a trapped bird inside my ribs. My skin is still burning where his shadow touched me.

My phone, resting on the side table, buzzes with a sharp, violent vibration.

I reach out and pick it up. It isn't a news alert. It isn't a call from Jefferson.

It is an encrypted text message from an unknown number.

I tap the screen to open it. Attached to the message is a high-resolution photograph taken less than ten minutes ago—a shot taken from a building across the street, showing me sitting in the penthouse window seat, looking down at my mother's journal, with Sylvester looming over me.

Directly beneath the photograph is a single line of text:

Welcome to the family, little traitor. Sylvester thinks he owns the tower, but your mother's real debt belongs to Manson.

My blood turns to absolute ice. Manson. The name from my mother's final journal entry—the man she claimed killed my father.

Before I can even process the text, a loud, sharp chiming sound rings out from the central security console by the elevator.

A red light flashes across the ceiling speakers as Lily's frantic voice breaks through the penthouse intercom:

"Mr. Arlington! Code Red in the lower archives! Someone just breached the vault using Eleanor Arlington's dead biometric key, and they just removed the 1995 Original Will!"