C5

“Sign here, Mrs. Arlington.”

The probate clerk points his pen at the final line of the marriage certificate. Eleven minutes. That is all it takes to bind my life to Sylvester Arlington in a drafty courthouse room, while three news helicopters hover outside the tinted glass windows.

I take the pen, my fingers ice-cold, and sign my name on the line beneath his jagged signature. I am wearing a simple ivory dress Lily chose for me this morning. It fits perfectly, like a silk shroud.

Sylvester doesn't look at me as he slides his gold signet ring back onto his left hand. His face is set like granite, signed with the exact same expression he probably uses when he's stripping a rival company of its assets.

Lily stands by the door, her tablet tucked under her arm, watching us with sharp, professional eyes. She steps closer to me as Sylvester turns his back to talk to the clerk in a low voice.

"Arlington Tower has high walls, Alice," Lily whispers, her voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner. "Don't look for windows where there are only mirrors. Jefferson watches every floor."

Before I can ask her what she means, Sylvester turns around, grabbing my elbow with firm, unyielding pressure. "We're leaving. The press is already blocking the steps."

On the courthouse steps, the cameras explode like blinding flashes of lightning. Sitting in the back of a sleek black sedan parked directly across the street is Celine Marsh—Sylvester's former fiancée and the board's favorite socialite candidate. She sits behind the tinted window, wearing a blood-red suit, her sharp smile cutting through the glass as her eyes lock onto mine, memorizing my face.

"Ignore her," Sylvester growls into my ear, pulling me toward our waiting vehicle as security guards push back the shouting reporters.

Two hours later, we are at the private board luncheon inside the St. Regis, standing before twenty of the most powerful men in Manhattan. The legal marriage satisfied the will's deadline and bought Sylvester temporary safety, but the air in the private dining room is thick with venom.

A senior board member, Arthur Vance, steps up to our table, his champagne glass resting in his hand as he looks me up and down with sneering contempt.

"So this is the miracle cure, Sylvester?" Vance sneers loudly enough for half the room to hear. "An unknown curator picked up off the street? Quite convenient timing, wouldn't you say? One would think you bought her straight out of a catalog to keep your voting rights."

My face burns. I clench my fingers into the fabric of my dress, preparing to snap back, but Sylvester steps directly in front of me, taking a step into Vance's space.

"Careful, Arthur," Sylvester says. His voice is soft, unnaturally quiet, and publicly lethal. "The last time someone questioned my family's integrity, I audited their offshore accounts. I'd hate to remind the board about your daughter's recent embezzlement settlement in Zurich before the vote on Monday."

Vance’s face drains of all color. He chokes on his breath, pales, and backs away into the crowd without uttering another word.

I stare at Sylvester's broad back, feeling a sudden, unexpected crack in the thick ice between us. He defended me. He didn't have to, but he did it without hesitation.

When we return to the penthouse that night, the silence feels different—charged, watchful, and entirely too quiet.

I retreat to my bedroom, leaving the door slightly ajar. Through the crack, I watch the soft light of the hallway.

Sylvester steps into the doorway long after the lights are turned low. He stands there in his black trousers and unbuttoned white shirt, his broad frame framed by the dark wood. He looks at me where I sit on the edge of the large bed. His hand rests on the doorframe, his knuckles white, fighting a visible, internal war against crossing the floor.

He stops himself with visible effort, lets out a harsh, quiet breath, and turns around, walking away down the hallway. He leaves the door half open.

I lie awake in the dark, listening to his heavy, rhythmic footsteps retreat into the secondary wing, wondering how long our "never touch me" agreement can possibly hold against the heat pulling at us both.

Unable to sleep, I get out of bed and walk down the quiet, dimly lit corridor into the locked wing of the penthouse.

I push open the heavy double doors at the end of the hall. The room is quiet, holding a faint scent of old oil paint and cedar. Hanging on the central wall is the portrait of Eleanor Arlington, her dark, icy eyes matching Sylvester's exactly.

Sitting on a low velvet bench directly beneath her portrait is the estate painting from the auction—the sweeping landscape my mother had restored before she died.

I step toward it, my heart hammering against my ribs. I run my fingers along the heavy, carved wooden frame. The landscape feels like a warning, a piece of a puzzle my mother died trying to solve.

Footsteps echo behind me.

"You shouldn't be in here," Sylvester's voice rasps from the doorway.

I turn around fast. He stands there, his dark hair messy, his dark eyes staring at me with a raw, guarded vulnerability I have never seen on his face before.

"This painting," I say softly, my voice shaking as I point at the canvas. "My mother restored this. She spent three months on it before the accident."

Sylvester walks slowly into the room, stopping two feet away from me. He looks down at the landscape, his jaw tight. "It belonged to my mother. It was the last thing she bought before she vanished."

"She didn't vanish, did she?" I ask, stepping closer to him, my gaze searching his face. "She was forced out."

Sylvester looks at me, his dark eyes softening for a fraction of a second, his breath catching in his throat as he looks down at my lips. He reaches out a hand, his thumb lightly, almost imperceptibly brushing a stray lock of hair away from my face. His touch is blistering hot against my skin, sending a wave of sharp, electricity trailing down my neck straight to my core.

"Don't dig into the past, Alice," he whispers, his voice thick and rough. "The past in this family kills people."

He pulls his hand back as if he's been burned, turns around, and leaves the gallery wing without another word.

I stand alone in the quiet room, my breath coming in short, uneven gasps, my skin still tingling where his fingers touched me.

I turn back to the estate painting. I reach around the back of the heavy gilded frame, testing the wooden backing with my fingernails.

There is a seam along the bottom edge—a seam that has been carefully glued shut and hidden beneath fresh varnish.

I pull a small silver nail file from my dress pocket and carefully work it into the groove, popping the dried glue open with a soft, cracking sound.

The wooden panel slides back.

Inside the hollowed-out space behind the canvas lies a folded, yellowed document, brittle with age and stamped with the official wax seal of the Arlington Estate.

My hands shake violently as I unfold the parchment under the dim gallery light.

It is a codicil to the original 1995 Arlington Will.

My eyes race across the dark, handwritten ink:

I, Eleanor Arlington, hereby amend my final testament. In the event of my death or unlawful removal, fifty-one percent of all controlling shares in Arlington Global shall not pass to my husband, nor to the general trust, but shall be held in absolute custody for my secret daughter, born on October 14, 1998.

A small, black-and-white photograph is paperclipped to the bottom corner of the parchment.

It shows a young woman sitting in a hospital bed, holding a newborn baby wrapped in a light blanket.

The young woman smiling warmly into the camera is my mother.

And recorded directly beneath the photograph, written in my mother's clear, distinct handwriting, is the child's registered name:

Child's Name: Alice Reed Arlington.

My breath completely stops in my chest. The world tilts on its axis as the room spins around me.

I am not an outsider who accidentally stepped into the wrong elevator.

I am Eleanor Arlington's daughter. I am Sylvester's half-sister—and the rightful, sole owner of Arlington Global.

Before I can even process the crushing weight of the document in my hands, a soft chime rings from the wall console inside the gallery wing.

A text message pops up on the wall's digital display screen, sent directly to Sylvester's private terminal from Jefferson's encrypted line:

Sylvester, the DNA results from Alice's courthouse blood test just came back from the lab. Read the attached file before you go into her room tonight.